


Need

by Lamiel



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: And angst, BDSM elements, Humor, M/M, Plot With Porn, Ten and the Master adventuring, because it's Ten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-09-18 22:40:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20320687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lamiel/pseuds/Lamiel
Summary: It isn't about what theywant.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ten and the Master, in the TARDIS, adventuring. This story starts out light and then gets intense. Very intense. Warnings for language, violence and explicit m/m sex in later chapters.

“Just one planet,” the Master said.

“No.”

“A moon, then. Sceti III has twelve. They’d hardly miss one.”

“_No_.”

“A continent. A country. One country. It doesn’t have to be a big one.”

The Doctor did not look up from his book. “I am not going to allow you to destroy a country just because you’re bored.”

“I’m not going to destroy it, you idiot. I’m going to _rule_ it.”

“It would be the same thing in the end.” The Doctor turned a page. The Master rolled his eyes. The Doctor could read _Les Miserables_ cover to cover in three seconds, yet he insisted on poking through it like one of his precious apes. The Master would have chalked it up as yet another of the Doctor’s many shortcomings, except in this case he suspected the other Time Lord was using it as an excuse to ignore him.

The Master was _not_ going to be ignored. “I’d be a much better ruler than whatever slack-jawed primitive they’ve got in charge now. I’ve ruled lots of worlds, you know. Lots. I’d be _great_.”

“Logopolis.”

“Oh, _fine_,” the Master threw up his hands. “Throw _that_ in my face again, why don’t you. It’s not _my_ fault the idiots didn’t have a back-up system.”

“To take over after you slaughtered their population and ripped a hole in the universe?”

“Yes! See, if I’d been in charge from the beginning I’d have prepared for that possibility!”

The Doctor did not answer. The Master scowled and flipped some switches on the TARDIS console. This had no effect, as the other Time Lord had isomorphically locked the controls before bringing him aboard, but he did it anyway because he knew it annoyed the Doctor.

_Beep . . . boop . . . bip_ . . . Playing with the controls didn’t affect the TARDIS’ course, but it did make noise. Idly the Master began to drum a rhythm on the console with his left hand while his right continued punching buttons.

_Tap-tap-tap-beep. Tap-tap-bip-boop-tap-tap. Tap-beep-tap-bip-tap-boop-tap –_

“Right!” the Doctor snapped his book shut and jumped to his feet. “Change of scene, that’s what we need. Ooh, and I know just the place.”

Elbowing the Master out of the way, he began setting the spacetime coordinates. The Master followed him around the console, craning his neck to see over the Doctor’s shoulder and offering helpful advice.

“Thermic regulator, temporal modulator at 60 percent – no, no, no, engage the buffers _before_ you release the quantum lock, didn’t they teach you anything at the Academy?”

“Shut up,” the Doctor said.

“I’m just pointing out –”

The Doctor threw a lever and the TARDIS quaked violently, knocking the Master to the floor. His head collided with a coral strut and for a moment the world was obscured by stars.

“_Doh shi v’chel’chrim na l’ch’vatehlna_–” There were no swear words in High Galifreyan, but the Master could make it serve perfectly well nonetheless. It shouldn’t be possible to spit out the dual-toned harmonics either, but he did. “– and I _know_ you passed basic flight, so what magnitude of a drooling idiot are you in this regeneration that you forgot to set the materialization dampers?”

“I didn’t forget,” the Doctor, infuriatingly, had kept his footing. He set the hand brake and jumped over the Master’s supine form to kneel a few feet away. He pulled up a panel of the floor grating and began to rummage beneath it. “The dampers are opposite the console to the materialization controls, and you know as well as I do they have to be engaged between the first and second phase of materialization. I don’t have time to run around the console and back just to give you a cushy landing.”

“Hmph.” The Master pulled himself to his feet, fingering the tender spot on the back of his head. “I could help, you know.”

The Doctor glanced up, and in that fraction of a second the Master glimpsed something like wistfulness in his eyes. Then it was gone.

“Not going to happen. Someday maybe I’ll build another feedback loop to engage the dampers remotely. I had one for a bit, but it burned out and nearly took the whole materialization circuit with it. Now where is . . . aha! Here we go!”

He heaved a large, slate-green metal box from beneath the grating and began to dig through it. “Holoprojector . . . harpsichord manual . . . ham radio set . . .”

“_This_ is your filing system?” the Master said in disbelief. “And when I think of the number of times you foiled my plans. I am so ashamed.”

“Harmonica . . . hypospray . . . there you are!” the Doctor beamed, pulling out a set of matched electronic handcuffs. “_Molto bene!_”

“Oh, you have got to be joking,” the Master said. “Bondage, Doctor? On our first date? How daring of you.”

The Doctor shot him a look. “Don’t get your hopes up. Now you can wear this, and go outside. Or you can not wear it, and stay here. Your choice.”

“Oh, you’re all about _choices_, aren’t you?” the Master sneered. He eyed the metal bracelet the Doctor held out. He was tempted to spit in the other Time Lord’s face, to turn his back and walk away, to prove that he didn’t need his charity, his _pity_. It would be worth another week indoors just to see the hurt in the Doctor’s overly expressive eyes.

He didn’t move. The seconds ticked past in silence as they stood there, both of them motionless, the electronic handcuff suspended between them on the Doctor’s outstretched fingers.

“_Fine_, then,” the Master exploded. He snatched the cuff and slid it over his left hand, snapping it closed around his wrist. “Happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” the Doctor caught the Master’s wrist and held it still while he aimed the sonic screwdriver at the bracelet, engaging the electronic current and locking it in place. “Eight feet,” he said, sliding the other bracelet over his own wrist. “Get any farther away from me than that and the cuff activates.”

“And all manner of dire events will follow, I know, I know,” the Master said. “I’m surprised you didn’t go with a collar and lead.”

The Doctor froze. Their eyes met, and the Master knew they were both thinking about the collar he had forced the Doctor to wear for that year on the _Valiant_, that year that never happened.

The Doctor was the first to break the spell. “That’s your kink, not mine.”

The Master smirked. “Really?” He closed the distance between them and took the Doctor’s hand. He ran his fingers over the fine bones of the metacarpals, up to brush the juncture of metal bracelet against the sensitive skin of the wrist. “That’s not how I remember it.”

The Doctor did not move. Anyone else might have called him impassive, but the Master heard the faint catch of his breath, and his fingers on the inside of the Doctor’s wrist felt the double pulse of his swiftly beating hearts.

He leaned closer, breathing in the scent of the Doctor’s skin, a smell like parchment and autumn leaves. “No, if you want to know what _I_ remember,” he whispered against the Doctor’s ear. “_I_ remember those nights when you –”

The Doctor jerked away, breaking the Master’s grip. “Time to go! People to meet, places to see. Just wait, you’ll love it. The whole history of this galaxy comes down to this one moment and you, Master, you were there!”

He kept talking as he dashed around the console, snatching his coat from the forked strut where he had thrown it and swinging it around his shoulders. _Running away just when things were getting interesting_, the Master thought. _Typical_. He scowled, following at a much more dignified pace that nonetheless kept him within the eight foot limit of the Doctor.

“Whose history?” he demanded, taking his own jacket from where it hung neatly on the coat rack next to the door. “Which galaxy? What are you babbling about?”

“After you,” the Doctor said, and opened the TARDIS door.

The Master tried to appear indifferent, but he could not quite conceal his relief as he stepped outside. It had been five days since the Doctor had brought him on board; 104 hours, 36 minutes and 15 seconds since he had last seen even Earth’s pallid excuse for a sun. He’d never thought he could ache quite so badly for the feel of sunlight and fresh air on his face.

The sun shone huge and red, filling half the sky. The sky itself was honey amber and the grass a rich, mossy green dotted with tiny blue and yellow flowers. The light breeze carried their mustard scent. His feet sank into the springy turf with each step.

The Doctor followed, pulling the TARDIS door closed behind him. They were standing on a hilltop, the Master saw, overlooking a long river valley. At least, he assumed it was a river valley. He definitely caught a glint of reflected sunlight that could have been off of water, but it was hard to be sure because the entire valley below them was filled with people.

Aliens of some sort, he thought – well, _obviously_ they were aliens, because the only other Time Lord in the universe was standing beside him. But they looked more or less humanoid, bipedal anyway, and he wasn’t sure if the brilliant crests that arched above their heads were actually a part of their anatomy or just decoration.

There was a _lot_ of decoration. The wind rippled banners and flags of every color from indigo and violet shading down into the infrared. The Master couldn’t be certain whether or not there was a river, because if there was one it was crowded so closely with boats and bunting-bedecked barges hardly any water was visible.

_There must be millions of them_.

“16.4 million,” the Doctor said, and it was only then the Master realized he had spoken his thought aloud. “It’s the largest gathering in history, for these people at least. The Neikol. They’ve come here from all over the world, all gathered here at this one time, and all because of her.”

He pointed. Squinting, the Master could just make out a clearing in the middle of the massive gathering, a clearing, he now realized, that must be a raised platform of some sort. A figure was walking into the open area.

Thousands of giant viewscreens flickered to life, rippling her image across the valley. The Master caught a glimpse of a wizened brown face under a large crest of white. The crest looked as if it were made of bone and covered with downy feathers like hair. _Definitely part of the anatomy_, the Master thought, watching as it flexed upward for a moment and then flattened against her head so the feathers brushed her shoulders.

“Peshren Vahrin Saligurna,” the Doctor said. There was a note of almost paternal pride in his voice. “Mother Pesh, they call her. This planet’s been at war for five thousand years. Five thousand years of civil war. They started out clubbing each other with rocks and worked up to detonating their first particle bombs. One of them cracked through the planet’s mantle a few years ago. Maybe that finally scared them enough to pay attention, because that’s when they started listening to her. And now here she is. She spent her life working for this: the day the leaders of the world will sign a declaration of universal peace.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” the Master said. Other aliens were walking out onto the stage to join Pesh. They were all richly dressed, with brightly colored crests in every shade of blue, red and gold, and they were wearing what looked like ceremonial swords.

“Yes, but this one they _keep_,” the Doctor said. “The Neikol have a strict code of honor. It’s caused a lot of their wars in the past, but in this case it means that they’ll keep their word. This gathering is the foundation for what will become the Neikol Confederacy. In a few hundred years they’ll have spread out through a quarter of the Leiroq Galaxy. They’ll be teachers, scientists, artists, philosophers and healers. Their civilization will stand for ten thousand years as a beacon of hope, and it’s all because of her.”

The Master did not answer. He stood with hands in his pockets, watching while the world’s leaders stepped forward one after another to sign the treaty. When they had all signed there was a pause, and then in a single motion they all drew their swords. The Master leaned forward, hoping for some action, but all they did was kneel and lay their swords down on the stage at Pesh’s feet. The cheering was nearly deafening, even at this distance. The Master settled back in disappointment.

When the noise died down the Doctor was still talking. “Her name will live on, carried across the stars. In a thousand years or so they’ll be worshipping her as a goddess. But today she’s just –”

“Okay, _okay_,” the Master said. “I get it. She’s a hell of a woman. I’m surprised you haven’t carried her off to join your harem already.”

“Don’t be crude,” the Doctor sniffed. “We did meet, once or twice. Not that I was interfering. Not at all. We just talked. A few times. When she was feeling low and thinking about giving up. But this was all her doing.”

“Right.” There was music playing now, and a man with a brilliant purple crest was singing what the Master assumed to be some sort of anthem.

The Master rocked on his heels. “Impressive.”

“Do you really think so?” the Doctor glanced at him.

“Well, sure,” the Master shrugged. “Look at them all. They changed their world because she told them to. That’s power.”

The Doctor was watching him now, leaning almost imperceptibly toward him. He probably wasn’t even aware he was doing it.

The Master hid a smirk. “Really, seeing them all here like this makes me want to give up all my plans for universal domination. I’ve seen the light. Peace is the way to go. Forget the Time Lord Empire, I think I’ll settle down on a nice quiet planet and raise fluffy bunnies instead.”

The Doctor’s face darkened. God, he was so transparent. It was pathetic, really.

“Shut up.”

“Ooh!” the Master darted to his side as he turned away. “What sort of bunnies, do you think? Lop-eared or normal ones? I like the lop-eared ones; they’re just so darn cuddly. You just want to nuzzle their little heads.”

“Shut _up_.” The Doctor pulled the TARDIS key from his pocket, still not looking at him.

“Oh come _on_, Doctor,” the Master said. “It’s what you want, isn’t it? Tell you what, we can get a nice little house with a picket fence together. I’ll even let you choose the curtains.”

The Doctor pushed open the door and strode into the TARDIS. He went straight to the console, not bothering to take off his coat, and began setting the dematerialization sequence.

The Master skipped up the ramp behind him. “Gosh, seeing how much good that one ordinary woman did makes me feel really, really bad about all the terrible things I’ve done in my life. I should do some charity work to make up for it. Ooh! I could give the fluffy bunnies to, I don’t know, some orphans or sick kids or something. How about sick orphans? That’s the ticket, two for one! You know of any sick orphans, Doctor?”

The TARDIS doors banged shut. The Time Rotor began to move, sending a deep pulsing thrum through the ship.

The Master pouted. “Aww, c’mon. Don’t be like that. This is the redemption of my evil soul at stake.”

The Doctor slammed a hand against the dematerialization button. He leaned heavily on the console for a moment, his hands braced well apart. “What that ‘ordinary woman’ did was extraordinary. If you can’t see that then that’s your failing, not mine.”

Pushing off of the console, he strode away. As he left the console room the electronic cuff on the Master’s wrist gave a warning beep. He yelped and hurried after the other Time Lord.

As he caught him up the Doctor whirled around to face him. “_What?_”

The Master held up his hand. “You’re the one who wanted to keep me close to you, remember?”

The Doctor stared at him. For a man with such an expressive face, his eyes at that moment were impossible to read. Grabbing the Master’s arm, he fished the sonic screwdriver from his coat pocket and pointed it at the circle of metal. There was a brief whine and the cuff snapped open. The Doctor wrenched it off the Master’s wrist and shoved it into his pocket, already turning away.

The Master stood still, rubbing his wrist while he watched the other Time Lord walk away down the corridor. “You know,” he called, “when I said she changed the world, the look of hope in your eyes was just _precious_.”

The Doctor stiffened. He opened a door – to the library, the Master thought, though it was hard to be sure. The TARDIS changed the rooms around quite a lot. The Doctor went inside and closed the door behind him.

*~*~*

Playing with the Doctor this way had its ups and downs. The upside was that this latest regeneration of his was _so_ expressive, and just couldn’t hide the effect the Master had on him. The least little hint the Master might be growing a bit less homicidal would raise his hopes so high – hopes the Master then delighted in crushing.

The downside was that crushing his hopes made the Doctor sulk, and when he sulked he stopped talking to the Master, and when he stopped talking to the Master the drums which had inexplicably faded to a bearable level in the Doctor’s presence returned with a vengeance.

The other downside was food.

The morning after their visit to the Neikol the Master was in the TARDIS kitchen, glowering into the empty refrigerator. He was positive that he had seen food in there yesterday. There had been half a loaf of bread, and eggs from various avian species on three different worlds, and meat and vegetables and fruit.

Now there was exactly one half-empty tin of canned milk. It was three days past the expiration date on its label.

The Master glared at it. He shut the door and concentrated. The pounding drums made it hard to think, but he managed anyway, bending all his considerable Time Lord will on an image of bread, eggs, bacon and mushrooms. He opened the door again.

The tin of milk had been joined by four slices of bread. The Master smiled. She’d done her best, but the TARDIS couldn’t completely ignore _all_ her programming. The routines compelling obedience to a Time Lord had been written into her core matrices in the very first stages of her hatching. He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out his victory.

Pumpernickel. The Master _hated_ pumpernickel.

He was scowling at it, arms folded, when the Doctor breezed into the kitchen. The other Time Lord looked refreshed, dressed in his favorite brown suit, his tie knotted, his hair carefully mussed just so. The Master’s scowl deepened.

“Morning.” It appeared the Doctor was defaulting to his usual method of dealing with unpleasant events: pretending they never happened. There was no sign in his voice or body language that he had any memory of yesterday’s argument.

The Master did not answer. He slid two slices of his pumpernickel into the toaster. Having had previous experience with the TARDIS’ kitchen equipment, he turned it to the lightest setting.

From the corner of his eye he watched as the Doctor opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of orange juice, a box of eggs, a loaf of cinnamon bread, a jam jar and a bag of mushrooms.

The toaster popped up. The pumpernickel was burned.

“Great. Just _great_.” The Master took a butter knife from the silverware drawer and tried to scrape off the blackened bits. “Your TARDIS hates me.”

“Well, you _did_ cannibalize her,” the Doctor said. He was slicing mushrooms.

“Yes, but she _ate_ me once. It evens out.”

The Doctor slid his mushrooms into a skillet and lit the stove. The stove was gas; in fact the entire kitchen was done in early 21st century Earth design, with cherry cabinets and inlaid marble counters. Were it not for the gracefully arching coral struts supporting the walls and ceiling the Master might have imagined he was stuck back on that dismal little world.

He took advantage of the Doctor’s distraction to steal a slice of cinnamon bread. He reached for the jam jar and then hesitated. “You haven’t had your fingers in here again, have you?”

The Doctor looked up, one eyebrow quirked. “Why? It’s not as if you mind.”

“Of course I mind! It’s disgusting!”

“Really?” In one swift motion the Doctor took the jam jar from him and opened it. He stuck two fingers deep inside and pulled them out, dripping with strawberry jam. As the Master watched he began to lick them clean with long, languorous strokes of his tongue.

The Master’s throat went dry. He was suddenly acutely aware that he was still in his pajamas and black dressing gown. He could feel every fold of the silk clinging to his skin.

The Doctor paused in the act of sucking the last of the jam from his fingertips and looked up, directly into the Master’s eyes.

Belatedly the Master realized his mouth was hanging open. He closed it, straightened, and swallowed. 

“Like I said. Disgusting.” Oh God, his voice was higher pitched than normal. Had the Doctor noticed? Of course he had. _Damn him_.

“I’ll, ah, I’ll just go and take a shower – that is, I’m going to get dressed.” The Master backed away, taking his cinnamon bread with him.

As he fled the kitchen he could hear the Doctor laughing behind him. He stalked down the corridor, his ears burning hot.

The Doctor did it deliberately. Of course he did. The smug, insufferable, arrogant, hypocritical _bastard_.

By the time he’d found his room (the TARDIS had taken to hiding it from him, although this time he tracked it down relatively quickly), showered (the water was definitely on the cool side, but that didn’t mean anything; the TARDIS hadn’t given him a hot shower since he came on board), and dressed he had calmed down considerably and was thinking about revenge.

He chose his clothes with care: black suit, black shirt and a black tie flecked with red that matched the lining of his suit jacket. He examined himself in the single mirror that adorned his Spartan, not to say cell-like, room. He looked smart. He looked in control. He looked, he thought, like a _Master_.

A Master who was going to take a certain Doctor down a peg or two.

When he returned to the kitchen the Doctor was sitting down to his omelet.

The Master poured himself a cup of tea from the pot and grabbed a plate and fork. He slid into the chair next to him. “So where to today?” he asked, stealing a piece of the Doctor’s toast.

The Doctor looked at him. “What makes you think we’re going anywhere?”

“Oh, come on,” the Master said. “Don’t tell me you ran away from Gallifrey – no, sorry, ran away and then _blew up_ Gallifrey – just so you could hang out in the Vortex.”

The Doctor flinched. “I haven’t decided yet.”

The Master blew on his tea, hiding a smile. “Could we go to Earth? I know it’s just your favoritest planet _ever_.”

“We can go anywhere _except_ Earth. You are not setting foot anywhere near Earth again, not for a long, long time.”

“Well, which is it?” the Master asked reasonably. “Never again, or not for a long time? ’Cause Time is not a problem, you know. Would a hundred years be long enough? How about a hundred thousand? I’ve heard the year 200,100 is very good.”

The Doctor frowned. “How do you know about that?”

“Oh, you hang around Handsome Jack long enough, you learn a few things.” The Master sliced off a section of the Doctor’s omelet and scooped it onto his toast.

“You tortured Jack.”

“Well, if you want to get _technical_ about it, I suppose so, yes. Don’t worry, he didn’t tell me anything useful. Like that scheme of yours with the Archangel network, that would have been really nice to know about.” The Master chewed thoughtfully. “He’s quite loyal to you, isn’t he? I wonder what you ever did to deserve that.”

The Doctor had stopped eating. He was staring into space. When he finally spoke his voice was distant. “Nothing. I never did anything to deserve it.”

“You mean the Freak’s that devoted all on his own?” the Master whistled. “What I could do with some minions like that. Plus, he can’t die! It’s just perfect! Of course there _is_ the slight problem that you can’t stand to look at him. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard, isn’t it? Being near him? I know. But maybe you’d get used to it after awhile. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

The Doctor stood up. “You stay away from him.”

“Or you’ll do what, exactly?”

The Doctor stared at him, and his eyes were very, very dark. The Master’s smile faded. For no particular reason he thought suddenly of the old name the Daleks had called the Doctor. The back of his neck prickled.

“You stay. Away. From him.”

“Fine,” the Master said. “I don’t care. I don’t need your Freak anyway. Maybe I’ll just go and make one of my own.”

The Doctor turned away. As he left the kitchen the Master said, “He loves you, you know. That makes it easy, doesn’t it?”

The Doctor faltered in mid-stride. The line of his shoulders tensed, but he did not turn around. After a moment he walked on.

The Master grinned and slid the rest of the Doctor’s omelet onto his plate. The drumming in his head was getting fainter already.


	2. Chapter 2

The Master finished the Doctor’s breakfast and drank most of the orange juice, leaving just the dregs in the bottle that he returned neatly to the refrigerator. It was petty and beneath him, but really, what was the point of being evil if you couldn’t be petty once in awhile? He ate his fill of cinnamon bread (untoasted) and then prudently wrapped up the rest of it and tucked it into his jacket pocket. There was no telling when the TARDIS would next decide to give him edible food. The Master suspected if it were up to her he’d spend the rest of his regenerations living on burnt pumpernickel and water.

Then he went looking for the Doctor.

It wasn’t hard to find him. This latest version of his favorite enemy seemed to spend all his time in the console room, whether or not there was anything he needed to do in there. Sometimes the Master wondered what it was the other TARDIS rooms held, that he hid from them.

The Doctor was on his back under the console when he entered, head and shoulders buried in an open panel.

The Master walked over and kicked one of his trainers.

“Stop it,” the Doctor didn’t change position, didn’t even move his foot.

The Master kicked him again, a bit harder this time. “What are you doing?”

“Working. Go away.” The Doctor moved his foot so the Master’s next kick missed him, swinging through empty air. The Master stumbled at the lost momentum and caught himself with a hand against the control room jump seat. He concealed the almost-fall by sitting down on the padded leather, pretending it had been deliberate. Then he wondered who he was trying to fool. The Doctor wasn’t looking at him anyway.

“You spent two days tinkering with the navigational circuits last week,” he pointed out. “They’re as fixed as they’re going to get.”

“I know,” the Doctor’s voice was muffled as he shifted position. The closely fitted trousers of his suit did nothing to obscure the long muscles tightening in his thighs, the lift of his narrow hips as he wiggled further under the console.

The Master became aware he was staring, and looked away quickly. It wasn’t fair. He still hadn’t had his revenge for this morning’s incident with the jam jar – needling the Doctor about Jack had just been a warm-up exercise, practically a reflex. And now here the other Time Lord was practically writhing on the floor at his feet, looking entirely too shaggable for anyone’s good.

The Master breathed deeply, trying to ignore the fluttering sensation in his stomach. It was no bloody fair. He was a Time Lord, for Rassilon’s sake. He was supposed to have more control than this.

A thought occurred to him. “Don’t tell me you’re messing with the randomizer again.”

“Do you know how hard it is to create a truly random number generator?” the Doctor finally emerged from under the panel. There was a smudge of grease accenting one high cheekbone, and his hair looked as though it had passed through an electrical storm. “Do you know how much harder it is to make a truly random generator for every spacetime coordinate _except_ Earth?”

The Master did know. It was one of the most elementary exercises at the Academy, set shortly after Initiation. Try to generate a series of numbers, random numbers, and after a while patterns started to creep in. The sequence might be complex, unnoticeable to anyone without an inherent sense of Time and Space, but it wouldn’t be random anymore. It was part of the basic nature of the universe: the force that made order out of chaos; that held it in balance against entropy.

Like anything else in the universe, true randomness took effort. The odds against it were about the same, the Master calculated, as the odds against that smudge of grease landing in that perfect spot on the Doctor’s cheek purely by accident.

“Anyway, we’ll soon see if it worked,” the Doctor said cheerfully. “_Allons-y!_”

He slammed down a lever on the console and the TARDIS bucked. The Master grabbed onto the seat cushions to brace himself as the deck plates heaved.

“I still don’t see why you bother with a randomizer,” he said when the ship had ground to a shuddering halt. “99 percent of the universe is empty space, so most times it would just land you in nothingness. The rest of the time you’d end up in a sun, or a gas giant or something.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” the Doctor set the handbrake and pulled the console monitor toward him. “It’s come in handy in the past . . . and it’s much more fun this way.” He paused, studying the readouts. “Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, gravity not too different from Gallifrey, probably a humanoid population . . . ooh! We’re on Raxis! Looks like it’s the Fourth Cycle of the Twelfth Chokyin Dynasty – that’ll make them Class VI now. They’ve made contact, but space flight is still limited. Brilliant!”

He darted around the console and grabbed his coat. “Okay, I admit I cheated a bit. It isn’t a true randomizer. The TARDIS filters out things like empty space, uninhabitable planets, Sundays, and as of today, Earth . . . although not black holes, apparently. But for all that it’s still pretty good, don’t you think?”

He pulled something from his coat pocket and tossed it to the Master. The Master caught it reflexively, one-handed. It was the electronic handcuff. The Doctor was already fastening its partner around his wrist. The Master made a face.

“I could disable this, you know.” He slid it over his hand as he walked over to join the Doctor.

“Deadlocked, sorry,” the Doctor said, suiting action to words as he pointed the sonic screwdriver at the Master’s bracelet.

“I could cut off your hand and take _your_ cuff.”

“Been there, done that,” the Doctor said. He smiled at the Master, widening his eyes innocently. “Besides, I’d regenerate, and you don’t know what you’d get afterwards. I could end up like my sixth self again.”

The Master shuddered. “I could cut off _my_ hand.”

“Not going to happen. I know you.” The Doctor opened the door with a sweeping gesture. “After you.”

The Master sighed and walked past him out into the fresh spring air of a new world.

Six hours later they were in prison.

“I knew it,” the Master said. “I just knew this would happen. What _is_ it with you, anyway?”

“Shh.” The Doctor was pressed up against the cell door, listening.

The Master leaned back on the thin mattress of the cell’s cot, resting against the wall. It was cold, with a bone-deep chill that leached through the material of his suit jacket and shirt. But at least he had a jacket. They’d been searched on arrival, and after a full five minutes of watching the Doctor pull various items from his pockets and add them to a growing pile on the table, their captors had finally confiscated the Doctor’s coat and suit jacket. He was in his shirtsleeves, which he’d rolled up to expose the lean muscles of his forearms. The Master was trying hard not to notice.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing. That door’s soundproof.”

“You never know.” The Doctor seemed to give it up, however, and sat down cross-legged on the floor. He sighed. “Raxis used be such a nice planet, too. All it takes is one overly ambitious military dictatorship . . .”

The cell was about six feet by eight: four blank concrete walls and a single door made of some sort of sheet metal. Amenities consisted of a six-inch-wide hole in the floor covered by a metal grating. There was one narrow bed, which the Master had appropriated. He was thinking about what would happen when night fell. Of course Time Lords could go quite awhile without sleep, so it might take a week or more before the Doctor finally succumbed. Knowing him, he’d hold out as long as he could before he’d allow himself to be so vulnerable as to sleep in the Master’s presence. Two weeks, maybe. He wondered what the odds were of their captors leaving them alone in this cell for two weeks.

It seemed the Doctor’s thoughts were running along the same lines. “Foolish of them, really, leaving us together like this. We could be plotting any number of things. Why do planetary overlords never think of that?”

The Master rolled his eyes. “The cell’s bugged, you idiot. They’re listening in, hoping to hear what we’re up to.”

“The TARDIS doesn’t translate Gallifreyan,” the Doctor paused, looking thoughtful. “Or Judoon, for some reason. I’ve been meaning to look into that.”

“Well, then, they’re recording us and they’ll torture us to make us translate it for them later.”

“Ahh, I see.” The Doctor gave him a considering look. “You know, you do offer a unique insight in this situation. Me, I always end up viewing a dictatorship from a place like this. But you’ve seen it from the other side. I’ve always wondered . . .”

“What?” the Master said. “You want to know how it feels? What it’s like to have whole worlds for your taking?” he got to his feet, unable to hide the excitement unfurling inside him at the thought. “You want to know what it _really_ means to be a Lord of Time? Power. Pure, raw, neither good nor bad, just a tool to be used as you see fit, as is your _right_.” He was at the Doctor’s side now, kneeling close enough to feel his body heat. “You could have that,” he breathed in the other Time Lord’s ear. “I gave you the chance. You could rule at my side. Together, we could make the universe quake.”

The Doctor turned his head to meet his gaze, and something flickered deep in his eyes. The Master saw it, and felt a thrill of dark triumph. They were so close now, physically and mentally, and he knew, he _knew_ the Doctor saw the same vision he did. They could do it. They had the power. The last Time Lords in existence . . . they could right all the wrongs, all the petty evils the Doctor had spent so long fighting . . . they could finish it, once and for all. There would be no power in the universe but theirs, and it would be _good_. There’d be no need to fight each other then. They could be together, forever, as they were meant to be.

The Doctor licked his lips. The Master’s own lips parted, so close now he was breathing in the other’s breath, filling his lungs with the Doctor’s scent. _Say yes_, he thought. The Doctor wanted it as much as he did. The Master knew it. _Say yes_.

“Actually,” the Doctor said, and the normalcy in his voice, spoken in utter disregard of their intimate position, was like a douse of ice water against the Master’s skin. “I was wondering why it is these megalomaniac dictators always have their guards wear big, tinted helmets that cover their faces. It’s just _asking_ for someone to steal one as a disguise. Why do they do that, do you think?”

The Master stared at him. It took a moment for him to process the Doctor’s words; they were so completely contrary to what he had expected. He stood up, clenching his fists as fury surged through him.

“I suppose it’s because the _good_ guys are so _stupid_ they actually fall for it. Which gets them inside your base, where they can be tracked, captured and tortured when the time is right.”

“Ah,” the Doctor let his head fall back against the wall. “Torture again. I might have known you’d get back to that.”

“Stuck in here with you, somehow it keeps coming to mind,” the Master snarled.

There was a metallic clang as the bolt outside the door slid back. The Doctor was immediately on his feet, facing the door, his back to the Master. The Master thought fleetingly it was a perfect opportunity to grab him, threaten to break his neck unless they let him go. Then it occurred to him their captors were unlikely to care about the Doctor as a hostage, since from their perspective he and the Master were on the same side. It was a bizarre thought.

The door ground open and four Raxii crowded into the cell. They were basically humanoid, with light green skin and long-limbed, angular bodies that moved with an oddly stilted gait, as though there were extra joints in their legs. For all their human similarities, there was something vaguely insectoid about their triangularly-shaped heads and overly large eyes. 

The guards were wearing military uniforms in shades of brown and black and large, tinted helmets over the upper portion of their faces. The Master sighed.

A fifth Raxis entered last. He was wearing an entirely black uniform with a handgun strapped to his leg, and no helmet. A commander, then. God, they were so _predictable_. Sometimes the Master despaired of ever meeting a fellow overlord worthy of the title.

“Hands up,” the commander barked.

“Hello,” the Doctor said brightly. “Have you come to take us to your leader?”

“_Up_,” the commander snapped again. Four laser rifles were suddenly locked on the Doctor’s chest. There was a rising whine as they charged.

The Doctor unhurriedly drew his hands from his pockets and raised them to chest height, talking all the while. “The thing is, I like talking to the man in charge. Or woman, sometimes, although somehow in situations like this it almost always turns out to be a man. Funny, that. No reason for it, although it has caused some people to develop all sorts of curious ideas about the connection between testosterone and violence. Or hyposternone and violence, in your species’ case.”

The commander took a single step forward and backhanded the Doctor across the face. He staggered, one hand going to his cheek. “Definitely hyposternone,” he muttered, running his tongue over his teeth.

The Master tensed. Being possessed of an acute sense of self-preservation, _he_ had raised his hands immediately on seeing the heavy guns enter the cell. That same sense of self-preservation kept him from moving or speaking when the Raxii commander hit the Doctor. Instead he stared at the alien, fixing the details of his face and voice in his mind so he would recognize him again later, when the time was right. 

The commander had committed a crime that carried but one penalty, to his mind. No lower species could lay hands on a Time Lord. But more than that, _no one_ had the right to hurt the Doctor, except for him.

“You are alien spies,” the commander said. “There is no need for you to see anyone other than the executioner.”

“Ah, well, if that were true you wouldn’t be here talking to us,” the Doctor said. “You’d have shot us the minute you opened the cell.” 

The Master could have kicked him. “Don’t _tell_ them that.”

The Doctor ignored him and carried on. “No, see, _you_ might think that, but your superiors don’t. What they’re thinking is, ‘Who are they? What do they know? How much did they see of our database before we caught them? And most importantly, to whom did they send that information?’ And I’ll bet they’re just _itching_ to learn the answers to those questions. So I doubt they’ll take very kindly to you killing us before they can talk to us. What do you think?”

The commander stared at him. “I think you talk too much,” he said finally. “You come with us.” He jerked his chin at the Master. “He stays here.”

Two of the heavily muscled guards seized the Doctor’s arms and began to pull him from the cell. The others kept their rifles trained on the Master.

“No, wait!” the Doctor said. He yanked against the guards’ grip, his trainers scraping over the concrete floor as they dragged him forward. When they reached the door threshold the cuff on the Master’s wrist began to beep.

The Doctor’s struggles became frantic. “Just wait a minute! Stop! You can’t separate us yet. The bracelets –”

The Master had two options: death by electronic handcuff, or death by laser rifle. One was certain. The other was not. He lunged forward, throwing himself bodily against the commander. The alien fell beneath him, all long legs and sharp angles. The Master scrabbled for the commander’s gun, but it was pinned beneath him, out of reach. He could hear the Doctor shouting, the grunts of his guards as they struggled to subdue him, the other guards jockeying for position as they tried to find an angle to fire without risk of hitting their commander.

With only seconds left, the Master switched tactics. He pressed the fingers of his free hand against the commander’s temple.

_Contact_. Entering his mind was absurdly easy – the Raxii had little or no psychic shields at all. The Master thrust his way inside, ignoring the rush of alien images and emotions flooding his senses. He had no interest learning anything from the commander’s mind, he only needed to drive in a single, burning imperative, and he forced it down alien synapses and fused it into alien ganglia with ruthless efficiency: _Stop!_

“Stop!” the commander shouted.

Everyone froze. The guards were motionless, still sighting down their rifles at the Master. Those holding the Doctor had turned half-way around to see what was happening. The Doctor was staring at the Master, his eyes wide. But all of that was of secondary importance, because the Master’s handcuff had finally stopped beeping.

_Come back here_, he directed down the link with the commander’s mind. _What is that?_

“Come back here,” the commander said. “What is that?”

The guards holding the Doctor returned cautiously. The Master spared a moment’s admiration for whoever had trained them: even with the distraction of the scuffle behind them, they had not slackened their grip on their prisoner. Were they working for him he’d have been pleased. As it was it was simply inconvenient.

He couldn’t stay lying here on top of the commander. And he couldn’t keep in mental contact with him without touching him. He sent a final command down the link and withdrew, rolling away from the commander and sitting up. A guard grabbed him by the arm and hauled him the rest of the way to his feet.

“Let them go,” the commander said. He blinked then, and shook his head. But the guards had already released the Doctor, and the Doctor, for all his many deficiencies, at least had enough wit to recognize an opportunity when it was handed to him on a silver platter.

“Thank you! Sorry about that. My friend panicked. But see, no harm done. Here,” the Doctor extended a hand to the seated commander. The commander stared at it blankly for a moment, and then took it in his own. The Doctor helped him to his feet, where he stood swaying. He looked dazed.

“You see, these devices on our wrists are linked,” the Doctor explained, holding his arm up so that the bracelet caught the light. “They can’t be separated. Take one more than eight feet from the other and they’ll go off.”

“They are weapons?” the commander asked faintly. He was staring with unfocussed eyes in the general direction of the Doctor’s wrist.

“We-ell, I don’t know about that . . .” the Doctor began, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yes,” the Master interrupted. “They explode. And they’re powerful enough to take down this whole building. Your leader would be interested in them.”

The Doctor shot him a disapproving look. Possibly the implanting of a suggestion in a psychically weakened mind offended his overdeveloped sense of morality. The Master could not have cared less if he tried.

One of the Doctor’s guards grabbed his wrist. “Take it off.”

“Oi!” the Doctor yelped. “I can’t! You took the device that opens it when we arrived.”

“The aliens’ technology was taken to be analyzed,” the guard holding the Master said. “Vraxil will have it by now.”

The commander nodded. “Bring them.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for violence and some extremely dodgy chemistry. And, fair notice: the plot involves saving lives with fake medicine, but the Doctor is a lot less _New Earth_ here, and a lot more _Family of Blood_. What can I say? I love his dark side.

“Does any of this strike you as familiar?” the Master whispered as they were marched down yet another long, featureless corridor. They passed a number of what looked like hospital room doors, all locked shut.

The Doctor nodded. “Torchwood,” he muttered. His tone was scathing. “‘If it’s alien, it’s ours.’”

“Torchwood?” the Master blinked. “I was thinking of Davros.”

The Doctor shrugged. “It’s the same thing, really. Just a matter of degree.”

They came to a stop at last in front of a set of double doors. The commander tapped a code on a keypad next to the door, and a retinal scan swept over his eyes. There was a beep, and the doors slid open.

“Oh, great,” the Master said, surveying the laboratory as they entered. “Evil scientists. Why are scientists always evil?”

“Hey!” the Doctor protested. “I’m a scientist, and I’m not evil.”

“You’re not a scientist, you’re a dilettante,” the Master informed him. “Like Leonardo da Vinci with the attention span of a five-year-old.”

The prod of a rifle butt in his back silenced him. The Master shot the offending guard a black look, but didn’t bother to commit his face to memory. He’d already mentally condemned this entire complex and everyone in it. It was long past the time of considering any difference between the innocent and guilty.

“What is this?” one of the scientists stepped away from a group gathered around a bank of computer monitors. Data scrolled across the screens, numbers and text printed in green against a black background. There were ten separate banks of screens in all: each bank connected by a series of cables to one of the large stasis chambers ranged like sarcophagi against the back wall. The chamber feeding the screens around which the scientists were gathered was open. A pale blue light radiated from it, washing over their intent faces.

The Master noted and dismissed all of this in his first scan of the room. An entirely different area captured his attention: a table to one side, separate from the banks of computer screens. The Doctor’s coat and suit jacket were laid on it along with a long row of items that included, he saw at once, the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver.

“Dr. Vraxil,” the commander saluted, striking his fist against his chest. “It’s the aliens, sir. You wanted them for interrogation.”

“I did?” Vraxil had a cold, haughty face, and the confusion that crossed it now was plainly out of place. He glanced at the Master and sniffed. “Surely your men can take care of that, Commander? Don’t tell me the Force Police have finally recognized their own incompetence and come begging to us for help.”

“No, sir. I don’t think so, sir. That is, I was sure you . . .” the commander looked lost.

“Excuse me, I think I can help,” the Doctor broke in. “It’s to do with these things, you see.” He held up his wrist cuff. “Little gadget of mine. The commander thought you’d take an interest, but see, you’d already taken my screwdriver – which, I notice, you’ve catalogued over here. Very tidy, very efficient of you if I may say so. Now if I could just have it back, I’ll make you a swap, how’s that?”

He edged toward the workbench as he talked, and the Master edged with him so as to stay within range of his electronic bracelet. Vraxil was watching them with his mouth slightly open.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor said cheerfully.

“Harry Saxon,” the Master said. It was rarely a good idea to introduce oneself as ‘the Master’ to people who thought they were in charge. “I’m his date.”

The Doctor shot him a look, but kept talking. “The bracelets are dead-locked, see, need the probe that created the original lock to open it, which, as it happens, is that device on the table there.”

“It’s a weapon.” The commander was evidently feeling the need to assert himself. It was a pity, then, that he still couldn’t do much more than parrot the ideas the Master had implanted in his mind. “We brought them here so you could examine it.”

“A weapon?” Vraxil frowned. “Why did you not find it in your initial search of the prisoners?”

“We did!” the commander said. “But it’s just jewelry! The scanner didn’t give any sign it was dangerous, and we couldn’t open it, so . . .”

“Oh, well, it isn’t much of a weapon,” the Doctor said. He’d reached the workbench and the sonic screwdriver, and no one was making a move to stop him. How did he _do_ that? The Master made a mental note to warn any future minions he might acquire about the dangers of underestimating skinny, apparently harmless unarmed aliens who talked too much.

But for the moment he wasn’t complaining, because the Doctor was directing the screwdriver at his wrist, and there was a sharp whine and a click as the cuff snapped open. The Master rubbed his wrist.

“Just your basic electronic immobilization technology,” the Doctor continued, turning the cuff over and running the sonic screwdriver along its inner surface. Lights flashed in response. “Nothing of any help in the Pergun Solution. Here, catch.”

He tossed the cuff to Vraxil, who caught it awkwardly against his chest. The Raxii stiffened, and several of the guards raised their guns. But nothing else happened, and the Doctor faced them with his hands in his pockets, whistling softly. After a moment they all began to breathe again.

Vraxil lowered his hands, still holding the cuff. “What do you know about the Pergun?”

“Ohh, nothing much, other than what was in your classified database,” the Doctor said. “They’re a minority on this planet, less than, what was it? Ten percent of your population? They’ve never had any real power, never controlled any resources, but you lot sure seem to have a bee in your bonnets about them.”

“They are a plague on the Raxii,” the commander said. “They are parasites, feeding off our accomplishments. They have no homeland of their own, so instead they latch onto those of others. They drag us down and hinder us at every turn, never contributing anything to the societies on which they feed.”

“Right, thank you, you can stop there,” the Doctor said. “I’ve heard that sort of thing before. But it’s not true, is it?” he wandered away from the workbench, poking between the banks of computer screens. The screwdriver had vanished into his pocket, along with several other items from the bench, including the psychic paper and the Doctor’s glasses. No one seemed to notice. The Raxii scientists were watching with open fascination. The Master took advantage of the opportunity to inspect the open stasis chamber behind them. A single look was enough to confirm his suspicions about where all of this was heading.

“I mean, they don’t have a homeland, but that’s because your ancestors conquered it,” the Doctor said. “And considering how small a percentage of your population they are, they do seem to have contributed an awful lot to your accomplishments. Your first manned spacecraft was designed by a Pergun, wasn’t it? And then there’s your water filtration, and your translation devices, and your advances in immunology – very important, that, what with you having made first contact and trading with other worlds. And yet still, in a society as advanced and civilized as yours, these absurd prejudices persist.”

“Who are you?” Vraxil said. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this. Commander –”

“So you come up with the Pergun Solution,” the Doctor said. He slipped on his glasses and peered at the data still flowing across the computer monitors. “That’s what I was reading about when your Force Police so rudely interrupted me. Good name, by the way, Force Police. It’s so redundant. Anyway, I was just trying to work out the details. It isn’t camps – your commanders aren’t stupid, Vraxil, they know they’re being watched. That’s the thing about moving out into the galaxy: you find people from other planets just don’t have much patience for these little racial schisms in a species. Most people manage to put that sort of thing behind them when they go to the stars. But you lot, no, you lot just got cleverer about hiding it. So you went with something subtler, something that could be explained by natural causes if anyone came looking. Something . . . biological, maybe?”

“Oh, well done, and you’ve only got this great big genetics laboratory for a hint,” the Master muttered under his breath. He strolled away from the stasis chamber, hands in his pockets.

“So what do you have here?” The Doctor began to type commands into the computer, his fingers dancing over the alien keypad. “Genetic re-sequencers, neural inhibitors, reagents, stimulants, depressants – lots of chemicals, actually – DNA analyzers, RNA analyzers – well of course, because if there’s one thing that is true about the Pergun, they are a different race from you lot. Different genetic code. Tiny difference, but it’s there. But to exploit it you’d have to develop a virus that latches onto that one little difference in their DNA. And to do that you’d have to work with fast replicating DNA, cells that are growing and dividing rapidly, giving you lots of material with which to experiment. Cells like you’d find in _them_.”

The Doctor tapped a final key, and the lids of the other nine stasis chambers hissed open. The Master looked up. It wasn’t just the stasis chambers. All around the laboratory banks of monitors were coming to life, showing images recorded by cameras positioned over the stasis chambers, in other labs, hospital rooms, cells all through the complex.

Children. On every screen, children. Some slept, some cried, some crawled, some stood erect on spindly legs, clinging to the rails of their cribs for balance. Some were locked in stasis. Many – most – looked drugged, or catatonic. None were older than the toddling stage.

They were, without question, the same species as the Raxii. But where the adults in the laboratory with them were green-skinned, these children were blue.

“The diaper bills must be _staggering_,” the Master said.

“I wonder what the turnover is.” The Doctor stood very still, gazing down into the nearest stasis chamber. “You haven’t got it yet, Vraxil, but you’re close. Very close. Research like this must have taken you . . . what? Ten years? Twenty? But the thing is, none of these children are older than two.”

Vraxil swallowed. “If you’re from the Shadow Proclamation . . .”

The Doctor straightened. He removed his glasses and fixed the Raxis with a piercing look. “I’m not from the Shadow Proclamation.”

Everyone was watching as the Doctor and Vraxil faced off. Unnoticed, the Master meandered over to the commander’s side. “Commander – sorry, what was it?”

The commander blinked, tearing his gaze away from the Doctor, and looked at the Master. “Leiquol,” he said.

“Commander Leiquol,” the Master repeated. He smiled, staring into the other’s eyes. “Be a good chap, Leiquol, and give us your gun.”

“Then what are you?” Vraxil said.

“I’m a higher authority,” the Doctor said. “The highest authority, actually. And right now, Vraxil, I’m giving you one chance. End this now. Erase your research, heal these children and give them back to their families. Tell the world what happened here. Tell the Shadow Proclamation. Tell anyone who’ll listen. Take a stand, and make it so this never happens again.”

“Or you’ll do what, exactly?” Vraxil said. The arrogant mask was beginning to slip, and he looked uncertain. But he managed to say the words with a sneer.

The Doctor held his gaze for a long moment, and then turned away. “Harry? What do you think?”

The Master had just slipped the gun from the commander’s nerveless fingers and into his pocket when he felt the eyes of the room turn toward him. “What?”

The Doctor shot him a look. “The time stream, _Harry_. Anything feel unusual to you?”

“Oh. Right.” The Master closed his eyes, allowing his senses to slip outward, feeling the currents that ebbed and flowed around this moment in time. He could see them in his mind’s eye: the golden threads connected to each individual in the room, stretching from the past and branching outward from this moment into millions of different possible futures. He opened his eyes and shrugged. “No. Nothing unusual.”

“No.” The Doctor smiled, a shark’s grin. His eyes were cold, as the Master had never seen them. “So many moments are fixed in time. So many tragedies. Abastil, Dexel IV, the first Martian Colony, Vesuvius . . . a surprising number of them are on Earth, actually. Germany 1939. Rwanda 1994. Britain 2009 . . . Jack will be involved in that one soon, I’m afraid. But not this time. This time, I can stop it.”

“This is absurd,” Vraxil said. “You know nothing of us or of the Pergun. They have leached off of us for long enough. I am going to free Raxis of their poisonous influence for good, and I will not be lectured by some alien interloper on the eve of our people’s victory! Commander Leiquol, shoot him!”

The commander blinked into life, his hand going to the empty holster on his leg. In the same moment the Master hooked an arm around the commander’s neck and dragged the taller alien off balance against his chest. He clapped Leiquol’s gun against his head, holding the commander between himself and the ring of laser rifles pointing at him and the Doctor.

“Drop them,” he ordered the guards. “Now.”

The guards hesitated. They were too far away, the Master realized, and those damned helmets they were wearing prevented him from making eye contact. The force of his command was enough to prevent their firing in that crucial half-second, but their training was too ingrained for him to override without a proper hypnotic contact.

The Doctor sighed. “I take it your answer is no, then.”

“What are you waiting for?” Vraxil shouted. “Forget the commander – _shoot them!_”

“Shoot and he dies,” the Master said, tightening his hold on Leiquol’s neck.

“You know,” the Doctor said. “I’d really rather you didn’t.”

He touched the sonic screwdriver against the metal cuff on his wrist. A piercing whine filled the room, shooting straight through the Master’s skull. He gasped, releasing Leiquol and dropping the gun as he covered his ears. All around them the Raxii were screaming, doubling over as they clutched their heads. The guards’ rifles clattered to the floor, and then they were falling, guards and scientists alike crumpling unconscious under the agonizing pressure of sound.

Then it stopped. The Master straightened up cautiously, panting for breath. “What was that?”

“The Raxii are sensitive to sound frequencies in the 22 to 24 kHz range,” the Doctor said. He stepped over Vraxil’s prostrate form and keyed into the computer system. “I adjusted the electronic handcuff I gave him to emit a feedback resonance pulse with my bracelet of 23.5 kHz. Knocked them out. Of course,” he added, pulling his glasses from his pocket, “a human wouldn’t have even heard it.”

The Master nudged the commander’s shoulder with the toe of his shoe. Leiquol’s head fell limply to one side. A thin trickle of bright purple blood ran from his ear down the side of his neck.

“How long?”

“Long enough,” the Doctor said. He was intent on the computer screen, calling up file after file of information that flicked past at blinding speed. Then he stopped and went still, staring at the screen. “Oh no. No, no, no.”

“What?” the Master craned his neck to see, but the Doctor had already closed the file and was opening others, filling the screen with pages of genetic code. “The Pergun diverge from Raxis’ dominant race by a couple of genetic factors, written into their DNA here and here,” he pointed at the relevant base pairs tagged red on a computer model of the double helix code. “Those factors control minor things – the color of their skin, primarily. The Raxii mapped their genetic code a few generations back – it was a Pergun team that first did it, ironically enough. Vraxil and his friends used that information to develop a virus that targets cells containing those base pairs. There’s no cure. Death occurs within a few days.”

The Master glanced at the stasis chambers lined along the wall. “Then those children . . .”

“Have already been infected,” the Doctor said. “If they’re released from stasis they’ll die. Them and every other person on this planet.”

The Master frowned. “You said the Pergun were ten percent of the population.”

“They are,” the Doctor left the computer console and darted across the room. He yanked open a storage cabinet and began piling equipment on the nearest workbench: liter bottles and packets of chemicals, drugs, pipets, syringes, two ring stands, a centrifuge, even an old fashioned Bunsen burner.

“But the virus is mutating. Vraxil couldn’t take the time to engineer one specific virus to this population. The Shadow Proclamation is monitoring this world – if they got any hint of what was going on they’d demand an inspection, and he’d be finished. Him and his government. So instead he took a strain of fast growing, quickly mutating virus and bred it using the fastest growing cells available. Children. Infants if he could get them, although even up to age three would work for his purposes. But it isn’t stable. Right now the virus targets the cells it was bred in: the Pergun. But once released, in a few generations – that’s a few hours at the rate it’s going – it’ll spread to every Raxis on the planet.”

“All right,” the Master said. “I still don’t see what you have to do with it.”

The Doctor glanced at him. “I’m going to stop it. I’m going to cure them.”

“Why?”

The Doctor looked down, using a pipet to draw a sample of liquid from one of the drug vials. “If you have to ask that question, then you can’t understand the answer.”

The Master blew out his breath in a heavy sigh. “Oh, please. This is their affair, not ours. Their stupid little prejudices, their primitive backwater planet. If they want to eradicate themselves from the universe who are we to argue?”

“You sound like a professor at the Academy.”

“There’s no need to be rude.” The Master scowled. “I was every bit as much of a rebel as you were, thank you. More so, I’d say. But I did it as befit a Time Lord. I ruled the primitives, I didn’t go scrabbling about in the dirt to save them from themselves.”

The Doctor did not answer. He was measuring a white powder from one of the packets of chemicals, shaking it into a flat-bottomed beaker suspended over a Bunsen burner.

“It isn’t as if they’re even from your precious Earth,” the Master pointed out. He perched on the end of the workbench, swinging his feet. “They live, what? A hundred years? At the most? What does it matter if they cut that short by a few decades or so?”

“You don’t have to help,” the Doctor said. He’d lit the Bunsen burner and was stirring the white powder with a slender glass rod, studying it as it began to brown. “Get out of my way, and make yourself useful. Someone will have heard that pulse, and they’ll be coming to investigate. You can seal the doors and buy us some time.”

The Master saw an opportunity. “All right. Give me the sonic screwdriver.”

“No.”

“How am I supposed to seal the doors, then?”

“Improvise.”

The Master sighed. “You are impossible.”

The Doctor flashed him a quicksilver grin. “I know.”

The Master rolled his eyes and slid off the edge of the table. Approaching the door, he assessed the possibilities provided by the retinal scan hardware and the electronic keypad. Tools: he needed tools. A quick search of the nearest scientist’s pockets produced a slender metal ruler marked in oddly spaced increments; a check of her hair yielded two hairpins. Thus armed, the Master pried the back off of the keypad box and set to work.

Two minutes later he completed the last connection of his jury-rigged circuit and jumped back as the door circuits fused in a shower of sparks.

He looked at the Doctor bent over his workbench. “How much longer?”

The Doctor didn’t appear to hear. He scooped a little of the browned powder into a test tube containing what looked like a blood sample. Then he inserted the tube into the centrifuge and set it spinning.

Some of the Raxii were beginning to show signs of waking up: turning their faces away from the laboratory lights and moaning. The Master thought about calling this to the Doctor’s attention and then decided not to bother. The other Time Lord would find out soon enough.

Thoroughly bored, the Master wandered over to the table where the contents of the Doctor’s pockets had been laid out. He poked through them desultorily: a collection of trinkets and small change from half a dozen worlds; a magnifying glass; a rubber mouse; a ball of string; a small glass snow globe; three paper ticket stubs from a Rolling Stones concert in 1976. The Doctor had, of course, taken back the sonic screwdriver and the psychic paper along with anything else that might have been the least bit useful right now.

There was a beeping noise from the fused lab door, and a babble of excited voices outside. Someone pounded on door. Both Time Lords ignored it.

One of the computer terminals caught the Master’s attention. He had little interest in the science studied here apart from noting that, should the Doctor fail, a global pandemic would fracture this world’s political system and the resulting chaos would make for a perfect opportunity to take it over. He kept that possibility at the back of his mind, but didn’t interfere with the Doctor’s efforts to prevent it. He had greater ambitions than would be satisfied by one disease-ridden planet.

But this was a military dictatorship, and where there was a dictatorship then there was also an underground movement fighting to overthrow it. All he had to do was override the security protocols and tap into the classified files . . .

“Who’s in there?” a voice called from outside the lab. “Open this door!” On the floor Vraxil groaned, rubbing a hand over his eyes. The Doctor scraped the precipitate from the test tube into an analyzer and leaned over it as though he could force it to give a positive result by the sheer force of his will alone.

. . . and the Master had the names, photos, and suspected locations of the top three rebel commanders. Another few clicks yielded the identity of the leader behind this dictatorship and his lieutenants. Vraxil was right at the top of the list, as head of “Research and Development for the Advancement of the Raxii Empire.” _Not exactly hiding it, are they?_ the Master thought. _‘Torchwood’ is right_. He idly drummed a rhythm on the console while the information downloaded into a file. Then he opened a communications link to the Shadow Proclamation.

“Damn it!”

The Master glanced up. “What’s wrong?”

“They used a retrovirus,” the Doctor said, still glaring at the analyzer readout. “I can’t reprogram it without . . .” he stopped and ran his hands through his hair. “I need to reverse engineer it, but I can’t do that without access to living viral and Raxii DNA. I don’t have . . .” he swore again. “The Rani was always better at this than me.”

“Oh, well, that’s it then,” the Master snorted. “All we need to do is ask her for help. Oops, sorry, hang on a minute, I forgot. You killed her along with the rest of the Time Lords, didn’t you? So there’s that plan shot down the tubes. Bummer.”

The Doctor’s face darkened. Without a word, he turned and strode over to where Vraxil was just pushing himself into a sitting position on the floor. “Even you couldn’t be stupid enough to do all this without giving yourself some protection,” he said, hunkering down to look into the scientist’s face. “Where’s the vaccine?”

Vraxil raised his head, his eyes unfocused. “What?”

“The vaccine!” the Doctor snapped. “I need something to work with! _Tell me_.”

Vraxil blinked. “There isn’t one.”

“There has to be,” the Doctor said. “Dr. Vraxil, you know how dangerous this is. It scares you, doesn’t it? You’ve lain awake some nights, thinking about what could happen. Now I’m telling you, it _will_ happen unless you help me. This is your last chance. Tell me about the vaccine.”

Seconds ticked past in silence as the Doctor held Vraxil’s gaze. Finally the alien looked away. He said nothing.

The Doctor swore. Straightening up, he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Check the databanks,” the Master said. “There’ll be a record if they developed one.”

The Doctor shook his head. “They covered their tracks. There isn’t time to dig through all the records to reconstruct it.”

“What do you mean, there isn’t time?” the Master said.

Vraxil pressed a green hand to his head. He still looked woozy. “Raxii have . . . natural immunity. No need for . . . vaccine.”

The Doctor went very still. “You’re lying.”

“No,” Vraxil said. “No . . . truth. No vaccine.”

“Don’t lie to me, Vraxil,” the Doctor said. There was dark velvet undercurrent to his voice that made the Master shiver. This was a side of the Doctor he had always known was there, had caught glimpses of in the past, but had never seen like this. Heat pooled in his belly, shooting tendrils of excitement all through him.

“I’m _not_,” Vraxil protested. He pushed backward, scooting away from them. “I’m not, I –”

His voice cut off as the Doctor shot forward, grabbing his shoulder and holding the alien still with a grip so tight his knuckles turned white. He pressed the fingers of his other hand against Vraxil’s temple.

The Master’s breath caught. Forced mental contact went against every law of Gallifrey. Invading that deeply into another’s mind, even of a lower species – _especially_ of a lower species – was a violation of the deepest order. Of course that had never stopped _him_, but the Doctor – the blessed, sainted Doctor – would never dream of such a thing. Or so he had thought.

Not for the first time, the Master wondered just what the Time War had done to his old enemy.

Vraxil began to tremble. It was subtle at first, a slight quivering of his hands, but it swiftly grew into a deep-seated shaking that wracked his whole body. His mouth opened wide, wider – he was screaming, but no sound escaped.

The Doctor released him. Vraxil collapsed, hitting the floor with a jarring thud. For a moment the Master thought he was dead, but then with a pang of disappointment he saw the faint rise and fall of the alien’s chest.

The Master released a quavering breath of his own. He was trembling almost as much as Vraxil had, shaking with excitement and arousal. He could have taken the Doctor then and there, shoved him up against the wall and plundered his mouth and body amid the whir of laboratory equipment and the aliens lying at their feet.

But the Doctor was already turning away, rising to his feet and crossing to the bank of computers. He tapped out a sequence of commands.

The Master swallowed. “Well? Did you get it?”

“I got it.” The Doctor abandoned the computer for the open stasis chamber. The Master followed. He watched as the Doctor pointed the sonic screwdriver at the chamber's keypad. There was a sharp whine and the numbers flashed in rapid sequence. Then with a popping sound the stasis field collapsed.

“What are you doing?” the Master grabbed his arm. “You’ll expose us!”

“Too late,” the Doctor said. “They had no idea what they were playing at. None.”

He shrugged free of the Master’s grip and began to disconnect the needles and electronic leads from Vraxil’s test subject. A single drop of purple blood welled up with each needle removed.

“What are you talking about?” the Master said. A horrible thought occurred to him. “What did you mean when you said there wasn’t time?”

The Doctor lifted the child out of the stasis chamber. The chamber readout said that she was two years old, but she looked younger: small, far too small for the adult-sized chamber, her scrawny blue body clad in a paper hospital gown several sizes too big for her. Her head lolled and the Doctor supported her, cradling her against his chest.

The Master dashed to the computer terminal and began scanning through the medical files: drug histories and chemical balances and genetic analyses flashing across the screen as fast as he could read them.

The Doctor carried the child over to the table holding his personal effects and laid her down, using his coat to cushion her.

Finally the Master found what he was looking for: the file the Doctor must have seen when he first accessed the database. He froze, staring at it for several long beats while his stomach tightened and the sour taste of fear rose in his throat.

“You knew.”

The Doctor had returned to Vraxil. He hoisted the Raxis up, staggering a little under his dead weight.

“_You knew_.” The initial shock was overwhelmed by a rush of fury, and the Master was able to move again. He took three long strides forward and swung, catching the Doctor with a swift right hook to the jaw. The Doctor’s head snapped back and he fell, collapsing with Vraxil on top of him.

“You _bastard_,” the Master shouted. “You knew the whole time – it’s a bleeding opportunistic gene-displacing retrovirus, and you just stood there _talking_ –”

“I did what I had to do,” the Doctor said. He pushed Vraxil off him and sat up, rubbing his jaw. “They would have died.”

“They’ll still die!” the Master cried. “And so will we! It changes its chemical key for each host – even Time Lords aren’t immune. And once infected it replaces your genetic sequence with its own – you won’t regenerate! You’ve killed us all!”

“No.” The Doctor got to his feet. “There’s still time. I can save us. Help me get him into the stasis chamber.”

“The hell with that.” The Master whirled and started for the door. “I’m going to the TARDIS.”

“Master, _stop_.”

The imperative was delivered in High Gallifreyan, the harmonic chords bypassing conscious will, tapping straight into the brainstem and freezing the nerve impulses at the spinal canal. The Master halted in mid-stride, stumbling to catch his balance as his momentum overshot his suddenly unresponsive legs.

He caught himself and spun back around, his fists clenching. “You misbegotten sniveling son of a whore – don’t you _dare_ order me!”

“I won’t,” the Doctor said. “If you’ll listen to me. You can’t go back to the TARDIS. We can’t risk exposing her to the virus.”

The Master stood still, breathing hard as the sense of this filtered through the red haze over his vision. The drums were positively _hammering_ inside his skull, urging him to strike, to destroy: this virus was a weapon in his hands and he would kill this whole stupid planet and the Doctor’s precious TARDIS just because he could, he was the Master and no one, _no one_ told him what to do.

He could do it. The imperative wouldn’t work a second time, not if he was ready for it. He could go.

He walked back to the Doctor, closing the distance until they were inches apart. The Doctor held his ground, watching him with careful eyes.

“When this is over,” the Master said, “I will make you pay for that.”

The Doctor met his gaze. “When this is over and we’re back on the TARDIS you can do whatever you want. Right now I need your help.”

“Oh, you _need_ me. Well, that makes it all okay then, doesn’t it? Go ahead and order me around like a first-year initiate – like one of your simpering idiot _humans_; it’s all right just as long as you really _need_ me.”

The Doctor sighed and bent down to pick up Vraxil again. “I am going to synthesize a cure to save everyone on this planet – including, not least of all, you. I can do it alone. But I can do it faster with your help.”

The Master hissed between his teeth. “_Fine_. Whatever it takes so long as I get off this stinking rock.” Mentally he made a note of the Doctor’s words about what he could do when they returned to the TARDIS. Whatever he wanted. The Doctor had been speaking in haste; probably he hadn’t even realized the significance of that statement. But that was one promise the Master intended to see him _keep_.

Together they manhandled Vraxil’s limp body into the stasis chamber. The Doctor connected the electronic leads and the IV line, sliding the needles home with swift, remorseless precision. The Master watched, fascinated in spite of himself. There was a set, deliberate quality to the Doctor’s movements he had not seen before. It was as though, having resigned himself to the task, he was determined to see it done quickly and with as little time as possible to reflect on the significance of his actions.

The Master was not about to let him get away with that. “What are you doing?”

“Vraxil said the Raxii had a natural immunity to the virus,” the Doctor said. He was typing codes into the stasis chamber’s keypad, calling up a sequence of chemical injections. He did not look up. “He was partly right. The retrovirus targets specific base pairs in Raxii DNA. In the Pergun those base pairs are readily accessible, which is why the virus was originally tailored to them. Those base pairs are chemically masked in the dominant race’s genetic code, so the virus doesn’t recognize them.”

“Right, I got that,” the Master interrupted. “But the virus is mutating, so in a few generations the mask won’t work anymore. Doesn’t mean the idiots made a vaccine, though.”

“Oh, but they did,” the Doctor said. “They just didn’t know how to refine it. But it binds to the gene’s chemical receptors and prevents the virus from taking hold, no matter how much it mutates.”

The Master glanced over at the Raxii scientists still sprawled across the laboratory floor. “Then why didn’t they use it?”

“Because in its current form the vaccine also binds to the neural receptors in the brain and causes irreparable neurological damage,” the Doctor said. He flipped a last switch and stepped back from the stasis chamber. “It renders whoever takes it little more than a mental vegetable within a few hours.”

A clear fluid ran down the IV tube and into Vraxil’s arm. The Master looked from it to the Doctor. His old enemy was staring at the Raxis scientist, his face set as though carved from stone.

“Guess how they found that out,” the Doctor said.

Vraxil opened his eyes. For a moment they looked clouded, dazed, and then they came to focus on the Doctor. Vraxil flinched, and his eyes widened in fear. The Master felt a pang of emotion somewhere between jealousy and excitement. He was used to people looking at _him_ that way.

“The turnover was ten a day,” the Doctor said. “Ten children a day locked inside those chambers and fed chemicals while the virus ate them from the inside out and this lot took notes and recorded how long it took for them to die. And they all died, eventually. The stasis can’t hold forever: there’s no scientific value in watching something suspended in time. Ten a day, every day, for eighteen years. Sixty-five thousand, seven hundred children tortured to death so _he_ could perfect a way to murder their race.”

Vraxil gasped. His head pressed into the stasis chamber’s bed, the tendons on his neck standing out as his back arched. Every muscle went rigid: whatever drug the Doctor had fed him, it evidently hurt.

The Master watched with rapt attention. “Aren’t you going to activate the stasis field?”

“No,” the Doctor said. “The virus is in his bloodstream. I’ve given him the vaccine. Now all that’s left is to engineer it to block the virus while sparing the neural pathways before he dies. I need his metabolism to catalyze the reactions. There’s nothing to be gained by putting him in stasis.”

“Except it would save his life,” the Master said.

The Doctor did not answer. His head was down as he keyed in the next injection. All his attention was focused on the monitors displaying Vraxil’s life signs: clues to the chemical war being fought inside his body. The strings of numbers ran alongside a computer rendering of the virus and the vaccine’s molecular structures – a world removed, the Master thought, from the sweating and shivering man they represented. That must be why the Doctor was so distant, so dispassionate as he fed in one reagent after another through the automatic injection system. That had to be it.

For his part the Master was nearly as excited as he’d been when watching the Doctor strip through Vraxil’s mind. The Doctor, the _sainted_ Doctor who never carried a gun, who had mocked _him_ for believing he would even _think_ of using a gun – the Doctor was fashioning a living man into a weapon before his eyes, and torturing him while he did it.

And there was no doubt it was torture. The alien was screaming now: gasping, whimpering little screams of breath that must be tearing his throat raw as the drugs burned through his body. The Doctor never hesitated, never even looked up. No doubt he would have said it was worth it, a fair price for the life of a planet.

The Master didn’t care if it was a fair price or not. He moved to the other side of the chamber and, after scanning the list of drugs the Doctor had already pumped into Vraxil’s system, began feeding in their reactive counterparts. The Doctor glanced at him, a swift acknowledgment, before returning his focus to the readouts. He kept his gaze there while they worked. The Master matched him step for step, reaction for reaction, but he watched the Doctor while they did it.

Then the Doctor stopped and, for the first time, looked at Vraxil’s face. “That’s it, then,” he said. “If the process goes as planned, we’ll have a viable counteragent.”

“How long?” the Master asked.

The Doctor sighed. “Oh, at his metabolic rate . . . fourteen hours or so, I’d say.”

The Master made a face. “And what, we just sit in here until then?”

“We-ell,” the Doctor began, and then the rest of whatever he was going to say was lost as a bone-deep rumbling vibrated up through the floor, filling the room and setting the Master’s teeth on edge.

“What?” the Doctor said. “_What?_”

Together they ran to the large, double-sealed windows in the lab’s south wall, giving a view over green fields. In the far distance the Master could just make out the silver spires of a city jutting up from the hills. But his attention was rather seized by the four massive, pillar-like ships lowering vertically down to land outside.

“Ah,” he said. “About time.”

The Doctor fixed him with a piercing stare. “What. Did. You. Do.”

The Master shrugged. “Opened a link to the Shadow Proclamation and sent them copies of everything going on here. Gave them the names of the lab team’s bosses, too.” At the Doctor’s horrified expression he spread his hands out in front of him. “What? It’s their job, isn’t it? Now we can leave this pathetic backwater and get on with our lives.”

“Oh yes? Great! Only, in case you forgot, our lives are also at stake!” The Doctor turned and ran back to the stasis chamber.

“Yes, and who’s fault is that?” the Master demanded. He followed the other Time Lord, noting in passing the Raxii were all conscious now, huddled together and watching them with large eyes. He dismissed them from thought.

“Anyway, I didn’t know you’d expose us all when I sent the message.”

“What did you think would happen? Even if I hadn’t released the stasis field, they’d have broken it when they confiscated the evidence. Either way, the instant they breach that door they’ll expose every member of their squadron, and they’ll carry it back with them on their ships. You’ve put the whole galaxy at risk!”

The Doctor swore in two languages that had been extinct on Earth for several centuries, and then again in a third that hadn’t been invented yet. He slammed his hand against the stasis panel. “There isn’t enough _time_. We’re at least twelve hours away, probably fourteen, and Judoon are so bloody _thick_. They won’t stop, and they won’t listen –”

He stopped. Breathing hard, he stared into the stasis chamber. “I’ll have to do it.”

“Do what?” the Master began, and then he saw the Doctor’s face. “No,” he said. His stomach tightened in a thrill of horror and anticipation. “No, you wouldn’t dare. You wouldn’t. You can’t.”

The Doctor looked at him, and there was a wild, almost fey light in his eyes. “Wouldn’t I? You said it yourself: we’re rebels. Breaking the rules is what we do.”

“Not like this!” the Master faced him across the stasis chamber, trying to hold his gaze. The Doctor avoided his eyes. “It isn’t worth it. One stupid planet – one stupid galaxy – they aren’t worth the risk!”

The Doctor reached down into the chamber and laid his hand flat against Vraxil’s chest. The alien had apparently passed the limit to which he could scream: he was pale, shaking and sweating as a series of convulsions knotted his muscles against themselves, but he was quiet.

“Germany, Earth, 1939,” the Doctor murmured. He spoke so quietly the Master could barely hear him for the roar of the ship engines outside. “There was a doctor there, too. Several doctors in fact, and it started well before 1939 . . . but it was all bound together into the same fixed event. He used children, too . . . I couldn’t stop him. I knew I couldn’t, time was locked, but I tried anyway, because I was young, and foolish, and I thought some rules were meant to be broken.”

A tramp of heavy boots sounded in the corridor outside, coming closer.

The Doctor drew a shuddering breath. “Some rules _are_ meant to be broken. Sometimes . . . and this time is _not_ fixed. This time, I will stop it. Now.”

He closed his eyes. The Master shouted in protest, reached to grab him, and then he felt it. The Doctor took the threads of time and made them stretch, and twist . . . and change. In this space immediately around the Doctor and himself, time ran fast. Fast, faster: speeding, racing, hurtling seconds compressed to microseconds, minutes to seconds, hours to minutes. The Master felt it, and he felt the strain as this tiny region of spacetime hurtled out of sync with the rest of the universe.

The floor heaved beneath their feet and the racks of computer monitors flickered. A beaker overbalanced on the Doctor’s workbench and smashed to the floor. _Earthquake_, the Master thought. Much more of this and the strain on the tectonic plates would shear the planet in two. Much more of this and the _universe_ would start to fracture.

Then it stopped. Time stuttered, slowing, catching up to itself. The Doctor staggered and caught himself against the stasis chamber, sagging almost to the floor. The Master swayed on his feet and had to brace himself against a workbench, feeling dizzy and ill.

“Did it occur to you,” he gasped once it became apparent they were not dead and the universe, for the moment at least, was still in one piece, “Just maybe some rules were made for a _reason?_”

“No,” the Doctor laughed, actually _laughed_, and hauled himself upright. The pale skin stretched over his facial bones like a death mask. His eyes were hollowed, sweat beading on his forehead. “No, because, look – it worked.”

The Master looked. Inside the stasis chamber, Vraxil was dead. His face was mottled, twisted in a final, silent scream, and deeply lined. His hair had gone a brittle, fragile white. He looked far older than the sudden age of fourteen hours should have done. The displays monitoring his life signs were dark.

But beside them a computer model of the modified vaccine turned in quiet 3D, and the data readout confirmed what the molecular structure suggested to the Master’s eyes: a chemical blocker that would engineer itself to its host and bind to the virus’ target receptors without impairing neural function.

Fourteen hours’ synthesis done in less than a minute. The foundations of the universe were stretched to the limit, perhaps even cracked, but holding.

The Master drew a shaky breath. Then he laughed, and the Doctor laughed with him. “All sorted,” the Doctor said. “Just have to start the replication process and set it for the fastest dispersal pattern – we’ll put it into the air supply. That’ll make sure no one is missed.” He set the commands and then turned to the Master, grinning. “There! Let the Judoon clomp through here now. I’ll show them a Lord of T –”

The gunshot cracked through the laboratory, reverberating off the walls. The Master jerked, tensing reflexively in anticipation of pain. It didn’t come. _What?_ He grabbed at his chest, felt the clean, undamaged fabric of his suit – and looked up to see the red stain blossoming from a tiny hole in the Doctor’s shirt.

“_No!_ No, no, no no nonononono . . .” He was shouting, screaming his denial, but the Doctor was crumpling forward, falling to his knees. The Master caught him, easing him to the floor, and blood was pulsing with every beat of the Doctor's hearts, seeping into the Master’s suit as he cradled the Doctor against his chest.

The implacable tick of the universe told him time was running at normal speed, but the Master could see and hear and feel everything: the labored rasp of the Doctor’s breathing; the metallic scent and the slippery heat of his blood on the Master’s hands; the distant pounding on the laboratory door and the thin stream of smoke curling up from the barrel of the commander’s gun. The commander knelt where he must have picked it up, clutching it in both hands, still pointed at the Doctor as he stared over it at them.

The Master stood. _Projectile weapons_, he thought. _They have bleeding laser rifles and they’re still using projectile weapons_. Probably it was ceremonial. Possibly there was someone, somewhere, who might have cared. The Master certainly didn’t.

“Stop right there,” the commander said. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

Any more strain on this timeline and the fabric of reality would rupture. The Master could not have cared less. He’d slow down the commander’s personal timeframe if necessary to stop him firing – but he didn’t have to.

He stared into the commander’s eyes. “_Drop it_.”

The gun clattered to the floor. The Master strode across the room and kicked the Raxis full in the face. The commander flew backward, blood spurting from his broken nose. He landed hard and curled in on himself, his chest heaving as he struggled for breath.

The Master picked up the gun.

There was a shrill whine and the laboratory doors glowed white-hot, their steel plates bubbling before they disintegrated under a collective burst of laser fire. A troop of Judoon tramped through smoldering wreckage into the room, massive helmets turning to take in the scene and leather kilts swinging about their knees.

The commander gained his breath and looked up, squinting through a mask of blood and tears. He held up his hands. “Wait, please –”

The Master sighted down the gun barrel and fired. A tiny hole appeared in the alien's forehead, while the back of his head exploded in a rain of blood and shards of bone. His body jerked once and was still.

Instantly twelve laser rifles were trained on the Master as the Judoon swung around.

The Master tossed the gun aside and faced them. The TARDIS didn’t translate Judoon, the Doctor had said. That suited the Master just fine. The way he was feeling, the absolute declaratives of the Judoon’s language were perfectly appropriate.

“Get those things off me.” He didn’t know if hypnosis would work on Judoon – in his experience the smarter subjects were generally the most susceptible, and the Doctor was right about one thing: Judoon were _thick_. The shielded helmets they wore didn’t help matters either.

Forget hypnosis. He was running on pure rage. He pointed at the commander. “Crime: attempted murder. Verdict: guilty. Sentence: execution. Carried out by me.” His hand swung around to point at the stasis chamber containing Vraxil’s body. “Guilty.” At the Raxii scientists and guards, huddled almost forgotten behind the farthest computer bank. “Guilty.”

Finally he pointed at the little girl who lay unconscious on the table, still wrapped in the Doctor’s coat. “Not guilty.” He waved a hand toward the rest of the stasis chambers and the monitors still showing the children locked in the complex. “Not guilty. What you do with them is up to you. There’s a resistance movement out there somewhere, and I expect their leaders will have some ideas if you bother talking to them. Me, I’d blow this whole stinking complex off the face of the planet. Sterilize the planet too, while I was at it. But that’s just me.”

He pushed through the Judoon line and crossed over to the Doctor. He knelt down to feel the pulses at his neck: both hearts were still working, though their beat felt slow. God, there was so much _blood_. He slid one arm under the Doctor’s knees and the other under his shoulders and lifted him up, staggering a little as he found his balance.

The Doctor’s head lolled against his shoulder and one long arm flopped down. A trickle of blood ran down his wrist and dripped from his fingertips. The Master turned around.

One of the Judoon stepped forward. “Who are you?”

“The Master,” the Master said. “I sent the files that brought you here. This is the Doctor. He saved your lives. Now I’m taking him back to our ship before he bleeds to death. If you want to know any more than that you’ll have to follow me.”

He started for the door. “And bring his coat!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting into the adult section of this story now. Warning: mind games, D/s, and whipping.

_Genetic modification,_ the Master thought as he laid the Doctor down on the table in the medical bay. The TARDIS had, for once, put the room he needed where he needed it. The Doctor had inhaled the modified vaccine along with the rest of them, but he’d been exposed to the virus too. How far had the virus spread before he’d found the cure? How much of the battle was still being waged inside his body? If he died now, would he regenerate?

The Master wasn’t about to take the risk. The Doctor had locked the TARDIS’ command console out of his control, but he could still use the med equipment. A scan revealed the path the bullet had taken through the Doctor’s chest. It had missed his spine and his left heart by centimeters, punctured one lung and cracked a rib as it came to rest just next to his spine.

The Master felt some of the fear knotting his stomach subside. The Doctor would live. He began the process of stripping off the blood-soaked shirt and undershirt, his lips pressing together in distaste as he pulled the fabric free of the raw flesh. Once that was done it was a trivial thing to remove the bullet, and then he ran a tissue regenerator over the wound in the Doctor’s chest. The injuries to the Doctor’s lungs and rib he could take care of himself with a few days in a healing trance.

The blood loss was another issue – the Doctor had lost so much, and there wasn’t a spare unit of Gallifreyan blood to be found anywhere in the med bay. Human blood, yes, in several different varieties; Gallifreyan, no. The Master snorted in disgust. It was just so _typical_ of the Doctor, thinking of his little pets’ safety but taking no precautions on his own behalf.

The Master debated within himself for several minutes before deciding the Doctor’s condition was not so critical as to require a transfusion from him. They were of a matched type, of course: all Time Lords were after their first regeneration. But the Doctor could survive a much greater loss than this, and the Master had no desire to weaken himself unnecessarily.

Still he hesitated, his fingers brushing back and forth over the Doctor’s hand while he thought. Coming to a compromise of sorts, he set a saline drip to replenish the Doctor’s lost fluids before turning away.

More than an hour after he carried the Doctor into the med bay, the Master came out again. His feet dragged as he walked: every muscle in his body seemed to ache. He turned down the corridor to his room and found it, surprisingly, right where he had left it. Another surprise: when he finally peeled off the last of his blood-soaked clothing (his _socks_ were tacky with drying blood. How had his _socks_ entered into it?) and stepped into the shower, the water was warm. Hot, even.

He washed his hair twice, working the last flecks of blood from his scalp. He scrubbed himself down, watching as the soapy water swirled away: tinted red-brown at first, then running clear. Finally he just stood under the spray, bowing his head while it drummed against his neck and shoulders.

When at last he wrenched off the water and dried himself off his skin was flushed pink from the heat and the abrasion of flannel and towel. But he could still feel the Doctor’s blood on his hands.

In the med bay, the Doctor was still in his blood-soaked trousers and trainers. It hadn’t been necessary to remove them to tend him, so the Master hadn’t. They’d be drying now. He’d be awfully uncomfortable when he woke up.

The Master was not going to think about that. Thinking about it might lead to him doing something about it, and _that_ was about two steps too many down the path of acting as if he actually cared about his old enemy.

Granted, some might point out he had just saved the Doctor’s life. But he was prepared to answer that: he needed the Doctor alive to pilot the TARDIS. There was a perfectly rational and logical explanation for everything he had done, if one just looked at it in the right light.

The Doctor would live whether or not he spent the night lying in his own blood. The Master was definitely not going to waste time thinking about it. He was tired, and he was going to sleep.

He bolted awake three hours later thinking about the blood drying in the Doctor’s hair.

He threw back his blankets (three of them, and heavy quilted ones too, entirely unlike the single thin coverlet that had been on his bed when he left it that morning) and got up.

It was perfectly natural, he told himself, filling a basin from the hot water tap in the med bay. Know your enemy, and all that. Okay, sure, after 900 years’ 

(obsession)

study he already knew the Doctor better than anyone else in the cosmos, but the principle remained. What other chance would he have to observe his nemesis this closely without the other Time Lord’s knowledge?

He was right about the Doctor’s hair. The blood had dried it into stiff spikes that pricked the Master’s palm when he ran his hand over it.

He wet a flannel in the basin and set to work. The Doctor stirred at his touch, frowning and turning his head away. The Master paused. The healing trance should have initiated hours ago: there was no way the Doctor could be aware of him.

A glance at the med table’s monitors confirmed this. The slow heartsbeat and the lowered body temperature told him the Doctor was far beyond feeling anything the Master did to him.

But as he finished smoothing back the wet strands of the Doctor’s hair and began to clean the dried blood from his neck and shoulders the Doctor’s movements became more agitated. He shifted position, turning his head from side to side and frowning. The Master avoided the white bandage circling the Doctor’s chest and ran the flannel over his lean sides, down to where the bones of his pelvis stood prominently above his flat stomach.

As he touched the waistband of his trousers the Doctor whimpered. The Master froze, his breath catching. Another look at the monitors: the healing trance was unquestionably holding. But this time he noticed something else: the lines indicating brain activity, which in the healing trance should have been all but flat save for a few low delta waves, were spiking and jumping in frantic activity. Delta, theta, gamma – even the alpha waves were active, indicating deep-felt emotion: fear or anxiety.

The Master tried to remember if he’d ever heard anything about anyone having dreams while in the healing trance. It seemed as if the professors in the Academy had said it was impossible – but they said that about most things. He and the Doctor had usually taken those sorts of statements as a challenge.

Well, dreams or not, the trance seemed to be doing its job. Already the monitors showed the Doctor’s fractured rib knitting back together: cracked and splintered bone joining and smoothing even as he watched. The Master turned his attention back to the task at hand.

There was nothing for it but to cut off the Doctor’s slacks: they were too stiffened with dried blood to come off any other way. The Master did this with a certain amount of regret. He’d rather liked the brown suit. The Doctor’s trainers, on the other hand, he pulled off and tossed aside without a second look.

He cleaned the Doctor’s legs and feet with slow strokes, dipping the flannel repeatedly in the warm water as he worked over the long muscles of thigh and calf. Finally he addressed the sensitive area of inner thigh and genitals, taking care to be gentle even though he knew the Doctor could not feel it.

The Doctor whimpered again, closing his legs and turning onto his side.

The Master took advantage of the opportunity to clean the Doctor’s back. When he’d finished he took the Doctor’s shoulder and rolled him carefully supine again. The position really made no difference: the med table supported its patient on a cushion of air a fraction of a millimeter above its surface, so there was no pressure on the injury however he lay. But the Master liked to see his face.

He stood still for a long moment, regarding his old enemy in silence. He was breathing rather fast. How often had he worked and planned and schemed to get the Doctor into his power? And now here he was stretched out before him: naked, helpless and vulnerable. The Master could do anything to him, and the Doctor could not stop him.

Dreamily he touched the Doctor’s face, palming his cheek while his thumb brushed over his lips.

The Doctor’s dark brows drew together, and he murmured something his sleep.

The Master paused. This wasn’t right. It had nothing to do with the tiresome morality preached by his one-time friend. But when he envisioned mastering the Doctor it wasn’t like this. The Doctor should be awake. He should be strong, and fight. When the Master bested him he should claim victory over not only the Doctor’s body but also his will and mind and spirit.

The Master sighed. Tracing the Doctor’s jaw with his fingertips, he bent down to whisper in his ear. “Soon, old friend,” he promised. “Soon.”

As he turned to go his hand brushed against the Doctor’s, and the Doctor’s fingers closed on his in a surprisingly strong grip. Startled, the Master turned back.

The monitors beeped an increasing rhythm as the Doctor’s heartsbeats grew faster, and his breath came in hard gasps. His closed eyes flickered back and forth behind their lids, and he moaned. The sound kindled a fire in the Master’s belly, shooting tendrils of heat straight to his groin.

He really, really wanted to know what the Doctor was seeing as he dreamed.

The Master swallowed. Then, as the Doctor kept a tight hold of his left hand, he moved his right up to the pressure points at the Doctor’s temple.

_Contact._

He’d no intention of invading too deeply into the Doctor’s mind. He only wanted to penetrate the surface just enough to see what had brought that delicious sound to his lips.

But the moment he touched the other Time Lord’s consciousness he was overwhelmed by a rush of images and emotions that tore through his mind and crushed his defenses as though they were not there.

_Smoke. Black smoke smote tears from his eyes. He could not breathe. He’d gone into respiratory bypass but his chest was hot and aching: he couldn’t hold out much longer. He rubbed a hand across his burning eyes. The tears were streaming down his face, but he could still see._

_Through the choking smoke he saw the flames burning through the TARDIS’ control deck and burning on the viewscreen. A hundred thousand ships: Dalek and Time Lord and half a dozen other lesser species dragged into the War on both sides. All of them burning. The fires glowed orange-red from their port windows and spilled deadly light from their engines._

_There was no sound, but he could hear them. Screaming, screaming inside his mind: every Time Lord who had ever lived and fought or who ever would, because the Eye of Harmony was open and he had tied it into the Matrix, and he still wore the Crown on his head and he was killing them all, past and present and future. Except there was no future, there would never be a future now because Gallifrey was burning._

_It filled the screen, it was the shining backdrop against which the fleet burned, and he had set the maelstrom raging across it, searing its surface to ash. The fires would consume it all, and he knew there would be no escape, for the Daleks had cracked the Citadel Dome and there was no safety to be had._

_The Citadel fell, and that was what he was waiting for. He felt Time convulse in its fall, and with the Matrix’s power he caught it, and as Gallifrey collapsed in upon itself he channeled the shockwave through time and space, reaching through the lightyears to touch the planet Skaro, where once in his youth he had been merciful._

_Gallifrey died, and with it died its oldest enemy, locked forever in step to the death dance that had been theirs from the beginning. The shock rippled through time and space, and all around him the Dalek and Time Lord ships were exploding, while the lesser species’ ships winked out as though they’d never existed at all._

_The screaming filled his mind, crushing him, obliterating all thought. He could not think, he dared not think about what he had done, what he still must do. Because the Time War still raged, fracturing reality, and it would spill from this place to rain destruction across time and space. It would destroy the universe before it had ever begun. So with a last effort he took the Matrix and he turned it in upon itself, locking it away, locking the entire War out of Time._

_The screaming stopped. He crumpled to the floor as the shock gutted him. The Crown rolled away, its golden band cracked and its lights extinguished, meaningless as a broken child’s toy. Silence, an aching, awful silence rolled in upon him, and he peered up through the haze of smoke to see an empty field of stars._

_He had killed them all._

The Master broke free with a wrenching gasp. He was shaking. His skin was chilled with sweat, and his eyes burned as though he could still feel the smoke. He fell to his knees on the medbay floor, his chest heaving as he fought to breathe.

“Damn you,” he choked, when he had managed to get enough air to speak. “Damn you to _hell._ Did I ask to see that? Did I _ever?_ There was a reason I ran, you bastard. There was a _reason._”

He caught hold of the med table and hauled himself upright. His legs still felt weak.

He leaned heavily on the table, staring down at the Doctor. The drums had returned with a vengeance, pounding inside his head, and he could cheerfully have strangled his old friend then and there, if only his hands did not shake so much.

For his part the Doctor looked nearly as bad as the Master felt. He was pale, his upper lip beaded with sweat. His hands had clenched into fists against the table’s surface, and tears streaked from his tightly shut eyes down his temples to tangle in his hair.

The Master rubbed his thumb against the moisture at the corner of the Doctor’s eye, careful not to touch the contact points at the temple. He raised his thumb to his mouth and tasted salt. With his free hand he touched the pulse points at the Doctor’s throat, hammering so close to the surface. He sighed. “You make it too easy, you know. Do you _want_ me to kill you?”

His hand moved up to palm the side of the Doctor’s face, cupping his cheek. The Doctor stilled. His restless movements stopped, and his hands relaxed their attempts to dig into the medtable. He turned his head, pressing his face into the Master’s touch. His lips parted and he made a soft, pleading noise somewhere between a whimper and a groan.

The Master swallowed hard. Coming so recently on the aftermath of the Doctor’s memories, he knew very well what that sound meant. In a universe of silence, there was only one response to another Time Lord’s touch. _Stay. Please stay. Please don’t leave me all alone._

It was a plea with which the Master could identify very well.

“All right,” he said, sliding his fingers down into the damp mass of the Doctor’s hair. “All right. I’ll stay. But you’ll have to pay. You know that, don’t you?”

He bent down and took the Doctor’s mouth in a gentle kiss. At no other time would he ever have shown any such tenderness to his old enemy: never would he have allowed himself to be caught in any form of weakness. But the Doctor would remember nothing of this. And in the whole universe, there was no one else to know.

So he took his time, lingering in his exploration of the Doctor’s lips and teeth and tongue, savoring the taste and scent and feel of him: a smell of wood-smoke and autumn leaves, the sparkle of atron energy on his tongue and the resonance of another Time Lord in his mind after so long alone. He broke the kiss at last and buried his face in the Doctor’s neck, breathing hard.

“God,” he whispered. “I missed you so much. All those years wasted with humans when we could have had this.”

He lifted his head and looked at the Doctor’s face. He seemed peaceful now. The monitors had evened out, and his heartsbeat had slowed. His eyes had stilled their frantic search behind his lids.

The Master pressed a final chaste kiss to his lips. “I’ll make it good for you,” he said. “You’ll see. I’ll make it so good.”

He pulled the sheet up to cover his old enemy and walked away.

*~*~*

Two days later the Master was sat in the command seat of the control room, his feet braced on the ledge of the console and a tool kit spread out on the seat beside him as he fiddled with the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. Like the TARDIS console, the screwdriver was isomorphically locked out of his control, but the Master was sure this time he’d nearly succeeded in overriding the lock. He’d managed to pry off the cover and was cross-connecting the interior control circuits. The tip of his tongue poked between his teeth as he carefully soldered the last wire into place.

“There, that should just about do it . . .” The nanocircuit board fused in a sudden shower of sparks. The Master yelped as an electric shock shot through his hand and up his arm. The screwdriver fell into his lap and the soldering iron clattered to the floor as he shook out his fingers, swearing.

“What are you doing?”

The Master looked up. The Doctor leaned in the control room doorway. He was fully dressed, the Master noted with a twinge of regret, in his blue suit complete with maroon tie and matching Converse. He looked tired, a shade paler than usual, the bones of his thin face more sharply accented beneath his skin. But the corner of his mouth quirked upward, and there was an amused glint in the depths of his brown eyes.

“None of your business.” The Master stuck his fingers in his mouth.

“That’s my screwdriver you’re mucking about with, so I think that makes it my business,” the Doctor said mildly. He straightened up and moved over to the console, stroking his fingers over its panels. The low hum of the TARDIS engines grew louder in response, and the lights in the coral walls brightened as the ship cycled up into active mode.

“Oh, have it your way.” The Master threw the screwdriver at him, and the Doctor caught it without looking up from the console screen. “It’s the most over-complicated, misnamed piece of hardware I’ve ever seen, and given how much time I’ve spent trapped in this mothballed ship that’s saying a lot. I ask you, what screwdriver needs 256 settings?”

“257,” the Doctor said absently. 

“Ooh, so that’s how you get all the Earth girls,” the Master said. He lowered his voice to approximate an American drawl, Elvis style. “‘Hey baby, how about we take a ride in my stylin’ phone box? Ooh yeah, and I bet you’ve never seen a screwdriver do _this_ before.’”

The Doctor raised his head and gave him a single, incredulous look before turning back to the console monitor. H’m. Apparently mimicry wasn’t one of this regeneration’s talents. Pity – some of the Master’s previous incarnations had been rather good at it. 

The Master dropped the accent and leaned back against the console seat, shoving his hands into his pockets. “So tell me. Have you ever used any of them to actually tighten screws?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” The Doctor was still studying the screen. “Where are we?”

A rumble sounded outside, and the floor of the console room shook. “The Judoon ship,” the Master said. “They confiscated the TARDIS after I locked them out. They’re taking us back to the Shadow Proclamation.”

Another rumble, and the TARDIS hull groaned. “Oh, and they’re trying to break inside,” the Master added.

“What?” the Doctor switched the monitor’s focus from wide to close range and bent forward, staring intently at the screen. “_What?_ That’s lithium nitrate charges they’re piling up out there! On my ship!”

He turned and ran down the ramp to throw open the TARDIS doors. “Oi! You lot!” he yelled, leaning outside. “Hands off!”

The Judoon grunted something in return, and the Doctor ducked as a red laser blast shot over his head and struck the interior wall.

“Hey!” he scrambled backward, slamming the doors closed. “Well, that’s just plain rude,” he said, darting back to the console. “But okay, fine, I can handle it. No problem. Just need a bit of get-up-and-go, up-and-at-’em, _allons-y_, gonna blow this pop-stand for a bag of chips –”

“What are you babbling about?” the Master interrupted.

“This,” the Doctor said, and slammed down the handbrake.

The Time Rotor began to pulse as the dematerialization sequence began. The Master got to his feet, open-mouthed. “You didn’t. You wouldn’t.”

The Doctor did not answer. He was running again, dashing around the console to set the coordinates, then racing back to adjust the stabilizers. “Master! The extrapolator shielding!”

“What about it?”

“Amplify it, one hundred and sixty percent. That green dial there!”

“I can’t,” the Master pointed out. “It won’t work for me.”

“Aargh!” The Doctor pushed a setting on the denuded sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the console. There was a whine, and then the screwdriver sparked and gave out. The Doctor threw it aside. “Do it now!”

The Master shrugged and touched the knob. To his surprise there was resistance as he turned it, and he could feel the TARDIS’ subsonic hum change pitch as the indicator crept upward.

The Doctor pushed a button with his left hand while reaching under the console with his right, kicked a lever with his foot, and then lunged bodily across the console to hit a panel on the far side with a hammer. The TARDIS shuddered before finally settling, the Time Rotor pulsing steadily. They were in the vortex.

The Doctor slid off the console and fell to the floor. “Whew! Now that’s what I call flying!”

“You would.” The Master released his grip on the console as his fingers started to cramp. The TARDIS was sounding a bit strained. He dialed the shielding down to normal levels and then stepped back. He folded his arms across his chest and regarded his fellow Time Lord.

“You destroyed them.”

The Doctor had retrieved his screwdriver and was lying on his back on the floor, examining it. He didn’t look up.

“Destroyed who?”

“The Judoon. You blew them up.” The Master tried to conceal the fluttering of excitement in his stomach at this prospect.

The Doctor levered himself off the floor, tucking his screwdriver into his jacket pocket. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I didn’t blow them up.”

“Those were lithium nitrate charges piled up there. They explode at the slightest vibration, and you just dematerialized the TARDIS right out from under them.”

“Which is why I extended the TARDIS's shielding and strengthened the quantum lock while I did it.” The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair. “I froze the charges in a static time loop during the dematerialization sequence. By the time they shifted back into normal time the TARDIS was gone and they were stable. Provided the Judoon don’t go knocking them over they’ll be fine.”

He took out his glasses and then paused, looking at the Master. “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you’re disappointed.”

The Master had no intention of admitting any such thing. But that didn’t make it any less true.

“It makes no difference to me either way,” he said. He leaned one hip against the console, watching as the Doctor put on his glasses to inspect the TARDIS’s destination settings. “I am curious about one thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“That scientist back on the planet. Vraxil.”

The Doctor paused in the act of setting the flight coordinates. He stood very still for a moment, and the Master saw the line of his shoulders shift as he inhaled. “He killed tens of thousands of children. He engineered a disease to commit genocide.”

“But he’d done nothing to _you,_” the Master said. “It’d nothing to do with us. We could have walked away. Instead you murdered him.”

The Doctor finished setting the coordinates and stepped back. “I gave him the chance to help us. He refused. So I did what I had to do, to stop the retrovirus.”

“And that’s all there was to it,” the Master snorted.

Finally the Doctor met his gaze. “Yes.”

The Master shrugged. “Fine. I like a little poetic justice as much as the next overlord. But the Judoon _shot_ at you. They shot the TARDIS. And you just let them go?”

“The _commander_ shot me,” the Doctor said. “And I’m fine. No harm done. Attacking the Judoon wouldn’t be justice, any more than going back to kill the commander would be. It would just be vengeance.” 

He stopped. He and the Master regarded each other for a long moment.

“Oh, no,” the Doctor said. “No. What did you do?”

“He shot you,” the Master said.

“I got better.”

“And that makes it all okay, does it?” The Master thought about what he’d glimpsed in the Doctor’s mind while he was in the healing trance. He’d gone looking before, on the _Valiant_, but he’d never seen anything like that in his old enemy’s mind. Those memories had been buried even deeper than the Archangel plan, locked inside where no one, not even the Doctor himself, could reach them. But when the Doctor’s defenses were down, he remembered. Forced to lower every barrier in the healing trance, he’d had to relive it all. The Master could see the toll that it had taken in the slump of the Doctor’s thin shoulders, in the haunting emptiness behind his eyes.

“What did you do to him?” the Doctor said again.

“Less than he deserved,” the Master said. It was true. He thought he could have imprisoned that commander and tortured him for a year before he killed him, and it still would have been less than he deserved.

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. He started to speak, but at that moment the TARDIS shuddered, making the deck plates quake, and the Time Rotor groaned and began to slow. The Master staggered, but managed to keep his feet. The Doctor grabbed onto the console for support, bracing himself against it while he adjusted settings with his free hand.

“Ah!” he said when the shaking had stopped. “We’ve landed.”

He threw the hand brake and ran to the doors. The Master followed, biting his lip. The anger that had been simmering inside him for the past two days was growing hotter, the drums a rising beat at the back of his mind, but he didn’t know yet if he was angrier with the aliens or with the Doctor.

“Here we are!” the Doctor opened the doors to a world of rain. It was pouring, hammering so loudly on the roof of the TARDIS it nearly drowned out the drums.

“Astrine V,” the Doctor said cheerfully, raising his voice to be heard over the rain. “We’re in what will be their largest city in another five million years or so. But it’s nice and quiet at the moment. Perfect chance to take stock of our situation.”

With that he walked out into the downpour, not even bothering to take his coat from where the Master had hung it next to the door. The Master stopped in the doorway and peered out. They were in what looked to be a valley carpeted with deep yellow-green grass. The rain drifted in silvery sheets across the distant hills. It was deceptively pretty to look at, but the grass was flattened under the onslaught and the soaked earth was churning to mud.

The Doctor seemed to take no notice. He ran his hands over the TARDIS exterior, murmuring something inaudible as he stroked it. He walked completely around the ship, and when he came back he was drenched to the skin and grinning like a fool.

“No harm done,” he said, pushing past the Master as he entered. He shook himself like a dog, spraying water everywhere. The Master stepped back hurriedly. “The Judoon’ll have to try a bit harder than that before they can put a scratch in my TARDIS!”

“And if they do?” the Master closed the doors, shutting out the sound of the rain. The drumbeat was loud in the ensuing silence, coming closer as his anger crystallized into focus. “They may as well try again, and do worse next time. It’s not like you’ll do anything to stop them.”

The Doctor paused in the act of wiping the rainwater from his glasses. “What do you mean?”

“The Judoon. The commander. Vraxil. That whole stupid planet. Take your pick,” the Master spat.

“If you’re upset because of what happened on Raxis –”

“Upset?” the Master mimicked him. “Why should I be upset? Just because you risked our lives over a few primitives and then got yourself shot and left me to deal with the consequences – why would that upset me?”

“They were committing genocide!”

“Not of _us._ When are you going to wake up and realize what’s really _important?_” The Doctor turned away, but Master followed him to the console, walking around it to face him. “I’ve news for you, Doctor. And it’s about time you listened. Primitives. Don’t. Matter. Whatever they choose to do to themselves is none of our concern. You can’t go sacrificing Time Lord lives to save some stupid apes from their own idiocy. The universe needs us. It doesn’t need them.”

“I’m sorry?” the Doctor said. “Are _you_ lecturing _me_ about the value of life in the universe?”

“I’m telling you the truth,” the Master said. “And you know it. Deep down, even you must know it. The Academy was full of bullshit, but one thing they got right. The universe can’t function without the Time Lords. The walls close, entropy increases, and the balance goes wrong. I can feel it, and so can you.”

“Right,” the Doctor said. “The funny thing is, the Time Lords are gone. Gallifrey is gone. And maybe things aren’t the same as they once were, but the universe seems to be coping without us just fine.”

“We’re still here,” the Master said. “You and me.”

The Doctor cast him a sardonic look. “Master, I don’t know how to break this to you. You and I can’t repopulate Gallifrey. I’m sorry, but it just isn’t going to happen.”

“Shut up,” the Master snapped. “It’s your fault. You never could do anything right. You managed to wipe the rest of us out, but you missed a few, didn’t you?”

The Doctor’s smile faded. “Stop it.”

“Maybe that’s what’s bothering you,” the Master said. The drums were pounding now, hammering with the beat of his hearts. The blood pulsed hot in his veins, and he spoke clearly, each word wielded with knife blade precision. 

“All those years you spent running, throwing your life away: one regeneration after another wasted on those stupid human pets of yours, on that stupid human planet. And then finally you get your chance, and you bollix it up. Double genocide – _almost._”

“Stop it. I’m asking you, properly, please stop.”

The Master walked forward, closing the distance between them. His head buzzed with euphoria, his whole body thrumming with the rush of power. He had seen the Doctor’s deepest secrets laid bare, and he knew exactly what to say, how to bring each word home to devastating effect.

“Killing the rest of our people wasn’t enough for you. No, you have to make a complete job of it.”

“Are you passing judgment on me? _You_ tried to destroy Gallifrey yourself!”

The Master scowled. “That was different.”

“Oh, _really_,” the Doctor said. “And how was it different, pray tell?”

“Because I knew you’d stop me.”

The Doctor stared at him. His mouth opened and closed once or twice, but no sound came out. Finally he said, “Is that was this is to you? Some sort of game? You’ve killed people, ruined lives, destroyed whole worlds – Master, if you wanted my attention, you could have just sent me a _note_.”

The Master snorted. “I go with what works. But you, now, you went all the way. Didn’t quite manage _complete_ genocide – two Time Lords survived, a few Daleks slipped through – but still. You can give yourself an ‘A’ for effort, and I’m sure you’ll be able to mop the rest up in time.”

The Doctor shook his head. “It wasn’t like that.”

“I think it was.” The Master cupped his cheek, his fingers just brushing the contact points at the temple. “Tell you what, why don’t you show me, and we can decide for ourselves.”

It was a risky, foolish thing to say, because the last thing the Master wanted was to experience those memories again. But he took the risk in full confidence of how the Doctor would react. And he was right.

The Doctor shoved him back, so hard that the Master stumbled and fell to one knee on the floor. “_No._ Keep away from me.”

“Why?” the Master panted, picking himself up. “Guilty conscience, Doctor? Afraid I might see something you don’t like?”

The Doctor looked at him, and something flickered behind his eyes. Something dark. “Go to hell.”

“Make me.” The Master grinned. The drumbeat was rising to a crescendo, savage in his triumph. “Kill me, Doctor, like you murdered the rest of them. Go ahead. Do it. There’s so much Time Lord blood on your hands, a little more won’t show.”

The Doctor turned away, circling the console, setting coordinates at random. His hands were shaking.

The Master moved to block his path. “It’s what you’ve been doing all this time, isn’t it? Chasing your own death, and now mine too. Well, if you’re going to kill me, Doctor, then do it outright. Don’t try to pass it off as some sort of _sacrifice_ to save someone else.”

The Doctor’s jaw tightened, but he did not look up. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m trying to save you.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” the Master grabbed him by the shoulders, his fingers sinking into wet cloth as he spun him around and shoved him against the console. He glared into the Doctor’s eyes from a few inches distance. “Don’t you _dare_ cheapen this for me. I don’t need saving. I’m _proud_ of what I’ve done. I don’t need your _forgiveness_.”

Unable to turn away, the Doctor finally met his gaze. His eyes were weary, dark with age-old sorrow. When he spoke his voice soft. “Then what do you need?”

_You._ The word leapt to the Master’s tongue, and he barely managed to keep from speaking it aloud. He swallowed hard.

“From you? Nothing. The real question, Doctor, is what do you need from me?” He reached up to trace the contours of his friend/enemy/lover’s face, mapping with his fingertips the line of cheekbone and jaw, the softness of his lips.

The Doctor closed his eyes under the touch, trembling.

“What do you need?” the Master murmured. “Is it absolution that you want from me, Doctor? Or is it penance?”

The Doctor’s breath caught. He looked up through the hair that hung dripping over his forehead, and there was raw hunger in his eyes. “Master –”

That did it. The Master groaned as a wave of sheer lust surged through him. His hands slid back to cradle the Doctor’s skull, his fingers twining in the wet mass of his hair as he brought their mouths together in a bruising kiss. He drove into the other Time Lord, his full weight forcing the Doctor back against the console as he pushed his tongue between the other’s lips, reveling in the heady taste of his age-old enemy and one-time friend, the sizzle of atron energy like champagne sparking on his tongue.

The Doctor yielded before his onslaught, his mouth opening to receive him, and the Master advanced to take new territory even as the Doctor retreated before him.

Except the Doctor wasn’t retreating anymore. The first shock had passed, and now the Doctor’s hands were in the Master’s hair, and the Master could feel his grip tightening as the Doctor kissed him back. And now it was his mouth that was invaded, and the Doctor was pushing off the console to meet him, pressing the full length of their bodies together as if he would merge them into one.

The Master was actually forced to take a step backward to keep his balance as the Doctor pushed into him. It was the console that did it, he decided in the small, distant part of his brain still capable of thought beyond the sheer unbelievable rush of feeling the Doctor’s lean body pressed against his. The console was serving as a buttress at his enemy’s back, giving him leverage and an unfair ally in this contest. Well, if there was one thing the Master knew how to do, it was to take out the Doctor’s allies.

Keeping a tight hold of the Doctor’s hair with one hand, he slid the other down his back, past the sharp ridge of his hipbone to grab his arse. The Doctor gasped and pulled back, his eyes widening, and the Master spared a moment to smirk before pressing his advantage and seizing the Doctor’s mouth in another kiss.

Then he felt the Doctor’s hands at his hips, his fingers digging into the Master’s buttocks. And then somehow the Doctor shifted their position and the Master moaned, actually _moaned_ into the Doctor’s mouth as the hot, aching length of his cock was dragged against the firm bulge at the Doctor’s groin.

It took every fiber of his not-inconsiderable will to keep from losing himself entirely and simply rutting up against his nemesis then and there. Instead the Master pulled back and managed, with tremendous effort, to speak coherently. One word, anyway.

“Bed.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Not yet.”

The drumbeat was gone, drowned by the thunder of the Master’s heartsbeat in his ears. That must have been why he didn’t hear properly. He couldn’t have heard properly. It had sounded as if the Doctor had said ‘not yet,’ which he couldn’t have done. There was simply no way the Master could be reduced to this level of need while the Doctor remained unaffected. It was not possible.

“What?”

“Later,” the Doctor said, and he was not unaffected after all. He was breathing hard, his cheeks flushed and his hair rumpled. His shirt collar stood up on one side, and his tie was loosened. But compared to how the Master felt he seemed utterly composed.

“Two conditions,” he said, and the Master felt like screaming.

“Conditions? You want _conditions? Now?_”

“Yes,” the Doctor said. “First, what happens now is only for now. It changes nothing between us in the outside world. Whatever I do or say here, you are not my master. If you try to take advantage of this later, I will stop you. If you try to do anything to me or to anyone else, if you try to hurt anyone, I will stop you. Do you understand?”

“What happens in the TARDIS stays in the TARDIS,” the Master drawled. He was calming down a bit – still painfully aroused, but able to take an interest in what the Doctor was saying. “All right, fine. Second?”

“Second,” the Doctor said, and paused. He took a deep breath. “Second, you can’t do anything that would make me regenerate. I haven’t that many regenerations left, and I rather like this one. Agreed?”

The Master stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

The Doctor looked at the floor, avoiding his gaze. He started to speak, and then stopped. He swallowed hard. 

“Penance,” he said at last, and looked up to meet the Master’s eyes. His voice was a bare whisper. “For my sins.”

The Master’s throat went dry. For a moment he could not speak. He was suffused by a wave of desire so intense he actually swayed on his feet. Struggling for control, he reminded himself fiercely of how many times the Doctor had led him on and then left him through the centuries – it had always been the Doctor leading in this dance of theirs, the Doctor who had the power to take them as far as he chose, however much the Master tried to pretend otherwise. How many times he’d dared to hope and had been betrayed. The Doctor didn’t mean . . . he couldn’t mean . . .

“This isn’t exactly the High Council,” he said, when he could trust himself to speak again. Whatever game this was, he wasn’t going to give the Doctor the satisfaction of seeing how profoundly he’d affected him. So, deliberately misunderstanding, he said, “Much as I’d love to play dress-up with you in those orange robes, Doctor, I can’t conduct a trial on behalf of all of Gallifrey. Sorry. You’ll have to look elsewhere for your justice.”

The Doctor gave him a look that said quite plainly he knew exactly what the Master was doing, and he was not going to let him get away with it. “I did not ask for justice,” he said, the words clipped and distinct as blades of grass edged in frost. “There is no one who can stand in judgment of me now. Do you think I don’t know that? God, do you think I haven’t thought about –” he broke off with a choked sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and shook his head.

He sucked in a ragged breath. “I asked for penance. I think you can give me that.”

The Master nodded, forgetting to conceal his eagerness. Even if he’d remembered, he couldn’t have hidden how much this meant to him. What the Doctor proposed tapped straight into the heart of what he’d longed for all his life – and yes, maybe it wasn’t all that hard to guess, the Doctor had pointed out the name he’d chosen rather gave it away – but still. He’d had the Doctor at his mercy before, and he’d taken him before both willingly and unwillingly – but to have the Doctor here, now, offering himself up for punishment (and oh, God, how he deserved to be punished) and willingly submitting to his Master . . .

“Yes,” he breathed, and never mind his voice was hoarse with desire. “God, yes. Where?”

“Here,” the Doctor said. He glanced at the console. “It looked different, before the fire, but this is where I . . .”

“Fine,” the Master said impatiently. “Here. Now, what do you have? Shackles? Ropes? Riding crop? Don’t tell me, you filed it under ‘K’ for ‘kinky.’”

“No,” the Doctor said. He blushed. “I never . . . I don’t have –”

The Master slapped him across the face. He struck with his open hand, not his fist, but he hit hard so the Doctor’s head snapped around and he half-fell, catching himself against the console.

“‘No, Master,’” the Master said. “I’m sick of your babbling. I don’t want to hear anything from you but ‘yes, Master,’ or ‘no, Master.’ Is that understood?”

The Doctor pushed himself off the console, glaring at him. His cheek was an angry, splotchy red. For a moment the Master thought he was going to hit back, but then he took a breath, seeming to compose himself. He bowed his head. “Yes, Master.”

The Master’s knees weakened as a fresh spike of desire shot from his stomach to his groin. The palm of his hand stung, and he felt light-headed. But he managed to speak clearly, if not entirely dispassionately.

“Better. So. I’ll have to make up for your deficiencies, as usual. Strip.”

He turned his back and walked to the command seat. He settled himself into what he hoped looked like a comfortable position – it would have been a comfortable position, were it not for the torrent of blood rushing to his cock. Crossing his legs was definitely out of the question. He thought about using biofeedback to take control of the situation and decided against it. At the moment he didn’t have the concentration to spare.

When he looked up the Doctor was still standing fully clothed next to the console, looking uncertain.

The Master pursed his lips in a disapproving gesture. “Come now, Doctor, it’s been twelve seconds already. I expect my orders to be obeyed. Every second of delay will have to be accounted for.”

The Doctor flushed pink and fumbled for the buttons of his suit. The Master spread his arms over the tops of the seats to either side and tilted his head back, his eyes half-lidded as he watched.

It wasn’t much of a show, actually. The Doctor was obviously embarrassed, and he kept his head down, pulling off his trainers and discarding his jacket and tie as if changing clothes at a gymnasium. Lucy had done a much better job when he’d made her strip for him.

But this was _the Doctor_, and so it was all the Master could do to cling to some veneer of indifference as the protective layers peeled away to finally reveal the pale skin beneath. It took some time. The Doctor had always worn a ridiculous number of clothes, even before he’d blown up his planet. The Master had seen him in cricketing gear, jumpers, a coat that would have been banned on any civilized world, Victorian frills – he’d done the Victorian thing at least twice – and for an excessively long time he’d been buried under a coat and hat and a scarf that was a menace all by itself. The Master wondered what he’d been hiding from then.

But still. Even without the overcoat, a suit jacket, a tie, a shirt _and_ an undershirt were truly excessive. The Master was positively itching with impatience by the time it was finally over and the Doctor stood naked and shivering before him.

Shivering, and it wasn’t that cold. The Master cast a long, slow gaze over him, letting the Doctor see exactly what he was looking at, and when. The Doctor’s blush deepened, and his shivers became more pronounced. But he didn’t try to cover himself, and the Master was glad.

Finally the Master got to his feet. “That was 68 seconds,” he said, and licked his lips. “You’ll have to do better next time.”

“Yes, Master,” the Doctor said.

“Turn around,” the Master said. “Hold onto the console, and don’t move.”

A deep shudder went through the Doctor, and the Master saw his cock twitch, regaining some of its former hardness. Apparently he wasn’t using biofeedback either. “Yes, Master,” he said, and did as he was told.

The Master walked to stand behind him. He undid his belt and slid it from the loops of his slacks, speaking to cover the sound of leather moving over cloth.

“This is where you were when you did it? In the TARDIS?” He didn’t need to ask, of course. He’d seen it – had _felt_ it – in the Doctor’s mind. But he was curious how his old friend would answer.

The Doctor said nothing. The Master waited a moment, and then raised his arm and whipped the belt over the Doctor’s bare buttocks. There was a crack of leather on flesh, and the Doctor gasped, flinching in pain.

“Answer me!” the Master ordered. “Were you standing here?”

“Yes.” The Doctor was breathing heavily, his head bowed. The back of his neck was beaded with sweat. The belt had left a red line running across his right buttock and curving down to his upper thigh.

The Master struck him again, across the tops of his thighs, and the Doctor cried out, his knees buckling.

“Yes, Master,” he corrected himself.

The Master groaned. He couldn’t help himself. There were two red weals now marking the Doctor’s pale skin like a brand, like a sign of possession. _Fuck,_ he thought. If only Jack could see them now. If only Saint Martha were here to witness. Their holy, precious Doctor would never have allowed them to see him like this: weak and needy and begging to be punished. This was for him alone.

“In the battle. You stood here and watched the fleets burn.”

“Yes, Master.”

“You _made_ them burn.”

“Yes, Master,” the Doctor said, and then gasped again as the belt lashed across his back, raising a long stripe over his lower ribs.

“You saw the Citadel fall,” the Master said, and the Doctor flinched for a reason that had nothing to do with any physical pain. The Master didn’t blame him. He could still feel the resonance of that grief in his own mind, left over from a memory he’d only witnessed second-hand. He knew, could feel deep in his own gut, what the other Time Lord needed now. He gave it to him, letting the makeshift whip fall where it would across his back and shoulders while he gave voice to the horrors the Doctor had buried for so long, the grief and guilt and pain that were his now too, in shared memory.

“You made them burn. Gallifrey. Skaro. Billions of people – the Daleks’ and ours. Gallifreyans and Time Lords. You heard them screaming in your mind, and you killed them. You murdered them. Men and women and children. The Academy instructors. The students. The Chancellor. Dax. That damned Monk. The Rani. Romana. Your own children, Doctor. You saved the ones on Raxis, but you couldn’t save them, could you?”

The Doctor’s head was bowed, his whole body quivering with each stroke. Apart from the harshness of his breathing, he did not make a sound.

“Answer me,” the Master said.

“Yes, Master.” The Doctor’s voice was dull, distant. His head was bent nearly to the console, and he spoke as if from a distance, lost in some vision only he could see.

The Master took a step to the side and aimed his next stoke so the belt whipped between the Doctor’s legs, striking the tender skin at the inside of his left thigh.

The Doctor’s head shot up and he yelped, closing his legs and twisting sideways to avoid the lash.

“_Answer me_,” the Master ordered again. “Yes, Master, you _what?_”

The Doctor looked back at him over his shoulder, his eyes wide. “Master, I, I don’t know, I –”

The belt cracked across his buttocks, adding another stroke to the crisscross of lines that stained them a deep rose. The Doctor was going to bruise there, for certain.

“You killed them.”

The Doctor faced the console again. “Yes, Master.”

“Say it.”

“Master, please –”

“_Say it!_” the Master shouted.

“I killed them,” the Doctor cried, his words mingling with broken sobs. “I killed them, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I tried to save them, I tried everything, I did but I couldn’t save them. I saw them burn, I killed them and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please, Master, please – more, I need more, I’m sorry, please . . .”

The Master broke off, panting. The muscles of his arm and shoulder were burning from exertion. The Doctor had collapsed over the console, shaking in reaction. He was breathing in shuddering, tearing gasps, the long red whip-marks stark across the flesh of his back and buttocks and thighs.

“More,” the Doctor begged, and the Master could see the tear tracks that streaked his face as it pressed against the console. “More, please, Master, I need more.”

The Master groaned. “Later,” he said. “Later, I promise. I’ll give you whatever you need.”

The Doctor was still shivering, trembling as he clutched the console for support. He kept asking, pleading for more punishment, and the Master realized he was far beyond hearing his assurances.

So he dropped the belt to the floor and crouched down, wrapping his arms around the other Time Lord and pulling him against his chest. The Doctor resisted, clinging to the console. “Please, Master,” he whimpered. “Please, more, please . . .”

“Shh,” the Master said. He pressed his lips against a raised weal over the Doctor’s shoulder, feeling the heat against his skin. “Shh. I’ve got you. It’s all right. Let go. It’s all right.”

It took some time, but at last the Doctor released the console and half turned, half fell against the Master, burying his face in the material of the Master’s suit. The Master slid to the floor, cradling the Doctor awkwardly against his chest. He ran his fingers through the Doctor’s hair, damp with sweat and rain, and kissed the top of his head.

“Everything is all right. I’m here. It’s all going to be okay.” He sighed, breathing in the Doctor’s scent, treasuring the warmth and weight of him in his arms. The Doctor was calming down, shaking less violently now, though he did not ease his grip on the Master’s shirt.

The Master smiled into the Doctor’s hair. “You really believe all that, don’t you? All this time you’ve been tearing yourself apart over a War you couldn’t control. You tried to stop it. You _did_ stop it, in the only way possible. I couldn’t have done it. Borusa couldn’t have done it. Hell, I doubt _Rassilon_ could have done what you did and survived. You stopped the Time War. You saved the universe – all the universes. The whole of Creation. But you can’t forgive yourself for living.”

The Doctor was still now, quiet in his arms. The Master brushed a thumb over the wetness on his cheeks. “Do you want to ask for my forgiveness, Doctor?”

The Doctor shook his head. His voice was muffled in the Master’s suit jacket. “You can’t.”

“I can’t, _what?_”

The Doctor lifted his head. “You can’t forgive me, _Master_. No one can. But you gave me what I needed.”

“Your penance,” the Master mused. “Part of it, anyway. I suppose I did.”

The Doctor nodded, burrowing back under the Master’s jacket. He mumbled something, but the words were lost against the Master’s shirt. The Master could feel his breath hot against his belly. Answering heat pulsed deep in his groin, reminding him there were other matters that required their immediate and lasting attention.

He poked the Doctor’s shoulder. “What was that?”

The Doctor sighed, a warm breath that sent fluttering shivers across the Master’s skin. He pulled back a little and sat up.

“I said, _Master_, that you did. Give me my penance. You were the only one who could.”

“Well, I am the only other Time Lord around these days,” the Master said.

The Doctor shook his head. “No. Even if – no. It’s you. You’re the only one who could do that for me. You’re the only one who could understand. At the Academy and . . . always. It’s always been you. Only you.”

The Master’s breath caught. He looked at the Doctor, and the Doctor, for once, looked back directly into his eyes. The Master started to speak, stopped, and swallowed. He took a breath. Then he leaned forward and kissed the Doctor, gently, as tenderly as if he were still unknowing, as if this moment could never be remembered and used against him.

When he drew back the Doctor looked away. “Don’t,” he said. “You know what I did. What I am. Don’t treat me like . . .”

“Like what?” the Master asked.

“Like you love me,” the Doctor finished, and closed his eyes. “I don’t deserve it.”

The Master was inclined to agree, for entirely different reasons. “Shut up,” he said. “Don’t tell me what to do.” And he kissed him again.

After a moment the Doctor’s hand slipped up to cup the back of his head and his lips parted, opening to the Master as the Master opened to him in return. The Master drank him in, savoring his taste, his touch. A part of him was shouting for him to stop, trembling in fear of being so exposed, of making himself vulnerable to the hurt certain to follow this display of weakness. But the greater part of him was drowning in the Doctor, lost in worship of his greatest enemy and oldest lover, and simply did not care.

When they finally drew apart the Doctor’s eyes were dilated, clouded with desire and his lips were swollen with kisses, and the Master knew he looked much the same. Again he could not bring himself to care.

“Time to keep your promise,” he said.

The Doctor’s eyes cleared, and he frowned. “What promise?”

“You said,” the Master kissed him again, “that when we got back to the TARDIS,” he moved down to nuzzle the juncture of the Doctor’s neck, “I could do whatever I wanted.”

The Doctor tilted his head back, giving him access, but the Master could hear the puzzlement in his voice when he answered. “What are you . . . oh. Oh. That.”

“Yes,” the Master agreed, nibbling over the length of his collarbone. “That.”

“You did . . .” the Doctor began, but the Master cut him off.

“No. That was what you wanted. Now it’s my turn.” The Master pulled back and drew a long, satisfied breath. “Bed, Doctor. Now.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adult. Very adult. Warning for language and explicit m/m sex.

Since their return from Raxis the TARDIS had not hidden the Master’s bedroom from him once. As he led the Doctor to where he had last left it, however, he was struck by a sudden fear that it would be gone. The TARDIS was sentient, after a fashion, and might not approve of what he’d just done to her newly recuperated Time Lord.

He held his breath as he turned the handle, half expecting the door to open into the utility room or the greenhouse. He stepped across the threshold and stopped. His breath left him in a rush, and he had to fight the sudden urge to sit down.

“Oh,” the Doctor said, behind him. “My. Your tastes haven’t changed much, have they?”

“Guess not,” the Master said, still dazed.

When he’d last seen it his bedroom had been slightly more comfortable than the average jail cell. The TARDIS had given him some more blankets after he’d saved the Doctor’s life, but his bed had remained narrow, Spartan, and dull as the rest of the room.

Now it was huge, a vast four-poster of gleaming mahogany that looked as if it dated from one of France’s more opulent eras. A black comforter was turned down to reveal crimson satin sheets beneath. The room was much larger, too, and the walls were lined with dark wooden bookcases, shelves upon shelves of books in rich leather bindings. There was a fireplace with heavy brass fittings set in the opposite wall.

Regaining his composure, the Master led the way inside and closed the door behind them. Their feet sank into the deep red carpet, and the Master saw a bouquet of matching roses on the carved table next to the bed.

“Why, Master, I never knew you were such a romantic,” the Doctor said. He padded across the carpet to examine the roses.

“They weren’t my idea,” the Master said. He didn’t exactly object to them, either, but he saw no reason to admit that.

The Doctor moved to sit on the bed and stopped abruptly with a small hiss of pain.

“Wait just a minute,” the Master said. He walked to the bathroom door and opened it.

He had a surprise there, too. Where before had been a small, purely utilitarian washroom there was now a luxurious bath straight out of a Roman Emperor’s pleasure palace, complete with gleaming black marble tile and a sunken tub one might go swimming in. There was another fireplace set into the wall here, too.

The Master took a moment to drink this in and consider the possibilities offered by the bath. _Maybe next time_, he decided.

“Now he needs some lotion,” he said aloud to the empty room. “Something soothing. Aloe, maybe, or susevera if you have it.”

He slid open the nearest drawer. There sat a small silver jar with a closely fitted lid. The Master straightened up, turning it over in his hand. He unscrewed the lid and sniffed the white cream inside. Aloe. Not surprising, as the only source of susevera healing extract had been destroyed along with the rest of Gallifrey. He scooped up a little of the cream with his fingers and rubbed it, slippery under his thumb.

He looked into the mirror and smiled. “Perfect.”

He paused then, studying his reflection. “He really did need that, didn’t he? He really did.”

There was no answer, but the background hum of the TARDIS seemed to get a little stronger. The Master shrugged. Taking the jar with him, he returned to the bedroom.

The Doctor was standing next to the bed, examining one of the bookcases. He had pulled the duvet off the bed and wrapped it like a cloak around his shoulders.

The Master felt a pang of disappointment. He’d rather liked seeing the Doctor walk about nude, especially while he himself was still fully clothed. Well, they’d get back to that soon enough.

“Why books?” he said, putting the jar of ointment down on the bureau and loosening his tie. “I mean, the bed and the rest of it I understand. But I don’t plan on doing much reading tonight.”

“They’re for me,” the Doctor said. He blushed a little under the Master’s gaze. “The TARDIS knows I like books.”

The Master grinned. “You mean you _really_ like –”

“Yes, well,” the Doctor cleared his throat. “Shall we get on with it?”

“Oh, now, that’s the way to sweep me off my feet. Very romantic, Doctor. You could give Romeo lessons.”

The Doctor brightened. “Did I ever tell you about the time I met Shakes –”

“Shut up,” the Master said. “I. Don’t. Care. Now drop the blanket and lie down on the bed. Hurry up.”

“Oh, and _that’s_ romantic,” the Doctor said. But he obeyed, stretching out on his stomach lengthwise on the bed. The Master grabbed the jar from the bureau and kicked off his shoes. He climbed up onto the bed and crawled over to kneel behind the Doctor.

The Doctor was still talking. “Some music might be nice. I’ve always thought Brahms was good in situations like this, but he turned out to be an absolute boor in person. Now Bach –”

“God, don’t you ever shut up?” the Master said. “Now be quiet before I gag you.”

The Doctor turned his head and shot him an impish look. “Is that an offer –”

His next words were lost in a hissing, indrawn breath as the Master stroked his hand over the long red welts on his back. The Master ignored this, concentrating on admiring his handiwork.

He bent down and pressed the flat of his tongue to one stripe that ran diagonally across the Doctor’s back, from his right scapula all the way down to the swell of his left buttock. The Doctor moaned, squirming as the Master licked his way down the length of the cut, savoring the heat of it, the taste of sweat and blood thrumming just beneath the surface of the skin.

He reached the Doctor’s arse, still a deep red from layers of stripes. The first bruises were just beginning to bloom purple under the red. The Doctor whimpered and shifted position again.

The Master held him down, gripping his hips tightly while he licked and nuzzled the hot, tender flesh, branded by his hand. He was whimpering himself, now, panting as he pressed his face into the Doctor’s cleft. All he could think was how long he’d wanted to do this, how badly he’d ached to take this latest version of his old enemy, willing and wanting him in return.

He reached the knot of muscle at the Doctor’s entrance, teasing the tight circle with the tip of his tongue. He heard the Doctor moan and redoubled his efforts.

“Master . . .” the note of pleading mixed with passion in the Doctor’s voice, saying his name, very nearly sent him over the edge then and there.

With a tremendous effort the Master pulled back, breathing hard, and reached for the little jar beside him. It had been kicked aside in their activities, tangled in the sheets, and it took a moment of searching before he found it.

The Doctor squirmed impatiently beneath him, lifting his hips in small, abortive movements. “What are you doing?”

“You’ll see,” the Master grinned. He scooped up a generous amount of salve with his left hand and dropped it onto the Doctor’s back. At the same time he slid his right hand under the Doctor’s hips to grasp his cock.

The Doctor gasped. He stilled, quivering, in the Master’s grip.

The Master settled himself more comfortably on the bed, sitting upright between the Doctor’s legs and pulling him firmly back into his lap. His cock was pressed against the Doctor’s cleft: he could feel the heat through the fabric of his trousers. With his right hand he held the Doctor essentially helpless, while with his left he smoothed the lotion over his enemy’s wounds.

The Doctor sighed, the muscles of his shoulders and back relaxing under the Master’s touch. His head dropped forward onto the bed, exposing the nape of his neck. The Master had to shift position to do his buttocks and thighs, and he did so reluctantly, regretting the loss of heat as he moved the Doctor off his lap.

He spread another dollop of cream on the stripe that ran down the Doctor’s inner thigh and worked his way up, massaging it into the heated flesh of the Doctor’s buttocks. Finally he slid his hand into the Doctor’s cleft, his slick fingers probing the Doctor’s entrance.

The Doctor inhaled, lifting his head. The Master smiled.

“I have a bit of a dilemma,” he said, rubbing his fingers over the circle of muscle. “Maybe you can help me.”

“Master,” there was a warning note in the Doctor’s voice.

“My problem is this,” the Master continued as if he had not heard. “On the one hand I want to fuck you right into this mattress. On the other hand I want to make you suck my cock.” 

He pushed two fingers sharply past the ring of muscle. The Doctor gasped. The Master worked his hand back and forth, stretching the muscle as he sought the right angle. His fingers touched a flat swelling that gave when he pressed it, and the Doctor made a sound unlike any the Master had ever heard from him before. It was a sort of moaning whine, and the Doctor bowed his head and pushed up on his knees, pressing back against the Master’s hand in a wanton display that took his breath away.

“So you see,” the Master panted, adding a third finger and rotating his wrist. “How . . . it’s hard . . . for me to decide . . .”

His cock was so hard it felt as if it might burst. He cupped himself through the fabric of his trousers, rubbing against the palm of his left hand while he finger-fucked the Doctor with his right. It occurred to him he could have planned this a little better. He was trapped with no way to undress himself, and if he took time to move either of his hands from where they were right now he feared that he might explode.

Then the Doctor pulled away and turned to face him. “You want to know what I think?” he said. “I think you always get yourself into these situations, needing me to help you get out. And I think you need to learn _you_ don’t tell _me_ what to do.”

And just like that, he undid the Master’s fly and yanked his slacks off him. The Master was thrown flat on his back, and the next instant the Doctor had pushed open his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt, and was shoving the fabric aside and clamping his mouth onto one of the Master’s nipples.

The Master bucked, arching his back, but the Doctor held him down while he paid thorough attention to sucking and laving with his tongue first one and then the other of his nipples. The Master groaned, writhing beneath him. “Fuck, Doctor, fuck, please –”

And he was not going to beg, he was _not_ going to beg, but his cock was like iron and white stars were breaking across his vision when the Doctor slid down with sudden brutal swiftness and swallowed his whole aching length deep into his throat.

The Master _howled_, arching almost entirely off the bed, and the Doctor shoved him back down and held him in place while the hot cavern of his mouth took the Master deep and then slid up his length to hold just his weeping tip. His clever tongue probed the Master’s slit, firing the Master’s nerves with electric pulses of pleasure so intense that it was almost painful.

“God, Theta, yes, yes, please –” the Master was coming, losing control: it was too much, his body was consumed and the fire was licking across his nerves – and then the welcoming heat was gone and what felt like a band of steel closed cruelly around the base of his cock.

The Master gasped, opening his eyes. “What –”

“Sorry,” the Doctor said, but he didn’t slacken his grip. “Not this time. Breathe. Come on. I know you can do it. Where’s that control? Come on, Master, you haven’t forgotten your biofeedback techniques, have you? That’s it. There we go.”

The Master managed to pull himself back under some semblance of control. He was slicked with sweat, his muscles trembling.

“What,” he said when he was capable of speech again, “do you think you’re doing?”

“There we are,” the Doctor smiled. “Well done.”

The painful tightness at the base of the Master’s cock slackened, but the Doctor kept a firm hold of him. He shifted closer, stroking the Master gently with one hand while he groped in the tangled sheets with the other.

“Where did you put . . . ah, there it is.” He retrieved the largely depleted jar of ointment and scooped some into his hand. “As it happens,” he said, massaging the slick fluid over the Master’s cock, “I decided I want you inside me when you come this time.”

The Master groaned at these words, his eyes fluttering closed. The Doctor sighed and moved against him, one hand cupping the back of his neck while the other held his shaft, pressed now between their bodies.

“God, Koschei, you are so beautiful like this,” he murmured. He kissed him, and then the Master felt his breath warm against his ear as he whispered, “You still taste the same.”

The Master took the back of his head with both hands then and kissed him, his fingers tangling in the Doctor’s hair, his tongue pushing deep into the Doctor’s mouth, tasting his own essence as he eased the other Time Lord down onto the bed.

The Doctor hissed as his back came into contact with the sheets, but when the Master drew back he grabbed his wrist to stop him. “No, it’s all right. I don’t mind.”

“It will hurt,” the Master said.

“I know,” the Doctor said. He lifted his hips, pressing his injured back more firmly into the mattress, and reached down to help guide the Master to his entrance. “It’s good when it hurts.”

The Master thought about arguing, but the Doctor’s head was tilted back, his dark eyes hazy with desire as he looked up at him.

“Please, Master,” he said, and before the Master knew what was happening he was sliding into him, pushing past the last resistance and into the close, welcoming warmth of the Doctor’s body. In truth it was not as hot as the Master had had in the past – Gallifreyan body temperature was lower than a human’s, and the times that he had lain with Lucy he’d felt as though he were one step away from being scalded. This felt different: cooler, tighter . . . perfect. It felt like coming home.

The Doctor groaned, his eyes closing, and the Master held himself still, breathing hard as they both took time to adjust. Then the Doctor opened his eyes and shifted position, raising his hips, and the Master rocked with him, sliding back and then driving in again, shoving the Doctor against the bed with every thrust.

Tiny, mewling gasps tore from the Doctor’s throat, and the Master was hurting him, he knew he was, but the Doctor had braced his feet against the bed and was arching his back, his face sheened with sweat and his hands digging into the Master’s hips, and the Master realized he was not in control of what was happening here.

He thought about stopping, as a form of protest, but instead he shifted his weight and angled himself lower and _there_, the Doctor positively keened as his head threw back and his fingers tightened hard enough to bruise.

Heat radiated through the Master’s body, whiting out his vision. His nerves flared with starfire and he was almost, almost there, skating along the edge but not quite over.

“Say my name,” he panted, and he would tell himself later it was an order, he was not begging, he never begged. “Say my name, Doctor, fuck, please, say my name.”

“Master,” the Doctor said, and his voice was hoarse with pain and want. “Master, please . . .”

Fire exploded along the Master’s nerves and pulsed from his cock, a star going nova in his mind as he pounded into his best enemy and lover again and again. Dimly he heard the Doctor cry out, and then he collapsed, his body going limp as the world whited out.

It was several minutes before he could bring himself to stir. He was sticky with sweat and semen, his muscles ached and he was desperately thirsty. But his head was pillowed on the Doctor’s chest, and he could hear the Doctor’s heartsbeat gradually slowing back to normal, and the Doctor was stroking his hair with one hand, and he never, never wanted to move.

“Thank you,” the Doctor whispered, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Thank you. You were wonderful.”

The Master swallowed. His tongue felt thick. “I hurt you.”

“It’s all right,” the Doctor said. He sounded as if he were smiling. “It’s what I wanted.”

The Master pushed himself up on his elbows to look at him. “You’re all right?”

“I’m always all right,” the Doctor said. “Tell you what, though, I could do with a drink of water.”

The Master sat up. His shirt was hanging off his shoulders, interfering with his movements. He shrugged out of it and crawled across the bed. His legs felt shaky and he held onto one of the bedposts as he stood. “I still hurt you,” he muttered.

As he made his way to the bathroom he heard the Doctor sigh. “Not enough.”

There were two cups next to the sink. The Master filled one of them with water and drank it down in one long gulp, then filled it again and drank it more slowly. He washed his face, dunking his head under the tap to wet his hair. He filled the second cup with cold water and set it aside. He took a flannel from the towel rack and soaked it under the hot water tap. Then taking the cup in one hand and the dripping flannel in the other he went back to the bedroom.

The Doctor was dozing when he returned. He stirred as the Master climbed into bed beside him. “Here,” the Master said, and gave him the cup of water. The Doctor sat up to drink it, and then set the cup on the bedside table and lay down again.

“Thank you,” he said sleepily.

The Master did not answer. He busied himself with sponging off Doctor’s stomach and thighs, secretly luxuriating in this last chance to touch his old enemy while the Doctor was completely relaxed, while trying to appear as if he didn’t care one way or the other.

When he looked up the Doctor was asleep. The Master sat quite still for a long time, the cloth forgotten in his hand while he watched the slow rise and fall of the Doctor’s chest. He had once thought, he remembered, it would take two weeks of deprivation to break the Doctor down enough to sleep in his presence. Something in the space between his hearts seemed to loosen.

Finally he dropped the cloth to the floor and lay down beside the Doctor. The Doctor murmured something in his sleep, frowning. He rolled onto his side, curling in on himself.

The Master spooned behind him, curving his body along the heated skin of Doctor’s back and wrapping an arm around his chest, holding him close. The Doctor resisted for a moment, tensing in his sleep and pulling away, and then he released a long breath and grew still. The Master kissed the back of his neck.

“So if that didn’t hurt enough, I wonder what would?” he whispered. “Oh, Thete, you _did_ do a number on yourself, didn’t you?”

He closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Total and complete self-indulgence at this point. There really is no excuse for this.

Two hours and eight minutes after falling asleep with the Doctor the Master awoke with three thoughts primary in his mind. The first: he’d lost feeling in his left arm, which was pinned under him as he lay on his side. The second: he needed to use the toilet. The third and most important: the Doctor had released the isomorphic lock on the TARDIS.

He lifted his head. Beside him the Doctor was still asleep. The healing process had begun: in the span of only a couple of hours lurid purple bruises had formed across his back, while the initial stripes had faded to a deep pink. The injuries were not severe enough to trigger a healing trance, but the Master guessed the Doctor would most likely be sleeping longer and more heavily than usual over the next few days.

Perfect.

Careful not to disturb the other Time Lord, the Master eased himself out of bed. He shook out his arm as he walked to the bathroom, wincing at the stabbing pins and needles as circulation returned.

After taking care of his immediate needs he decided to forgo the luxuriant bath for a shower, during which he examined with interest the neat pattern of five fingertip-shaped bruises that had appeared on each of his hips.

He returned to the bedroom afterward, his bare feet sinking into the carpet. The Doctor was still asleep. As quietly as he could, the Master opened his wardrobe and breathed a silent sigh of relief on seeing the long row of black suits, shirts and ties hanging there. He’d half-feared the TARDIS might have discarded them in her redecorating spree.

He dressed swiftly: white shirt, black suit trousers and jacket. He stuffed a black tie into his pocket. He’d deal with it later. It did occur to him the sensible thing might be to leave the tie behind, but he dismissed the thought out of hand. The Doctor might be a bit eccentric in his choices of costume, but every Time Lord inevitably became attached to whatever garb he selected in each regeneration. It was a part of him, a part of his identity for that lifetime. When every single cell in your body could change at a moment’s notice, clothes really did make the man.

For better or for worse, this version of the Master had identified with a suit from 21st century Earth (and yes, he did know the Doctor had been the last person he’d seen just before the regeneration took him, and no, he was not going to think about the implications of that for imprinting or anything else). The tie went with the package.

He had to fish under the bed to retrieve his shoes. Finally he straightened up, feeling much more his old self again, and looked at the bed. The Doctor had rolled onto his back, one long arm stretched across the space the Master had left.

He should go. He was going to go. He was not going to stand here (not for long) and listen to the silence inside his head (the drums were not gone, they were never gone, but now, right now, they were quiet) and imagine the Doctor was reaching out for him. He was not.

So he bent down and stroked back a lock of the Doctor’s wayward hair and whispered, for his dreams alone, “This is the way it has to be. It’s the way it’s always been. And it’s good, isn’t it? Doctor? Isn’t it good?”

The Doctor was frowning again. Lying on his back – God, he _was_ a glutton for punishment in this regeneration, wasn’t he? The Master pressed a swift kiss to his lips and straightened. “Goodbye, old friend.”

He started to turn away, and then he stopped. On impulse he drew a rose from the bouquet beside the bed and tossed it onto his empty pillow. _Romantic_, he smirked, and walked away. He didn’t look back.

In the console room he checked the outside monitor. It was still raining. 5 million years from now this place would be a metropolis, the Doctor had said. It seemed as good a place to start as any.

*~*~*

Two weeks later, subjective time, the Master was appointed deputy minister in charge of the first Astrine extraterrestrial colonization project. Two days after that the first labor camps began to go up across the three major continents. Workers drafted from the undesirable population – criminals, political prisoners, and members of various minority ethnic groups – were sent there for assignment. Six weeks later the first rockets began to rise, made to the Master’s specifications, each one loaded with an eight-ton particle fusion bomb.

Two hours before the first rocket was scheduled for liftoff a police telephone box of a design never before seen by any native of that planet materialized inside the central control station. Some noise and confusion later – the Master never did get the details of what happened, but he gathered there was a lot of running – the countdown sequence stopped. Then the entire control grid went off-line. And then the bombs began to malfunction, each and every one of them across three continents fusing their command circuits, ignoring all communications sent to them, and quietly rendering themselves about as effective a weapon as an 18th century cannonball.

By this time the Master had received word of what was happening and moved to his fallback position. This, as it happened, was the personal quarters of the Royal Astrine Crown Emperor, who was sixty-five years old, worshipped as a god by most of the planet, and prior to meeting the Master had been a mildly eccentric, kindly man who had wanted his people to see the stars.

He’d been under hypnotic control for ten weeks. He’d lost thirty pounds and had developed a habit of staring blankly into space for hours at a time, except when he was needed to make an audiovid appearance to his people.

The Doctor, when he saw him, was not pleased. He expressed his displeasure by manhandling the Master into the TARDIS and locking him inside while he repaired the damage done to the Emperor’s mind. It took some time. The Master had been thorough, but by no means had he been gentle.

Hours passed. When the Doctor finally returned and took the TARDIS into the vortex the Master was bored, hungry, and annoyed. He was also secretly impressed the Doctor had found him so quickly, considering he’d programmed the TARDIS to a fast return setting and wiped her location history before he’d left. The Doctor, however, was furious.

The confrontation lasted hours. It ended in the Doctor’s bedroom, and this time it was the Master who went down on his knees before the Doctor, and came so hard he lost control completely and climaxed before the Doctor even had a chance to touch him.

But it was another ten days before the Doctor asked him for penance again.

*~*~*

Two months later they stopped at an interplanetary space station to buy parts for the TARDIS. The Master managed to short out the circuit of his latest handcuff by connecting it to a binary feedback loop the vendor was selling as a novelty toy, and slipped into the crowd while the Doctor was haggling over a used energy converter.

He stowed away on a cargo ship carrying supplies to an asteroid mining station. After a day of hiding he got bored and turned himself in to the crew, whereupon the captain summarily ordered him executed. Three hours later he led a mutiny that overpowered the captain and his senior officers, locked them in the cargo ship’s hold, and set a new course for the Vega system.

Eight days later his coronation as the Vegan High Priest-King was interrupted by a police telephone box materializing in the center of the Royal Court.

This time the Doctor just laughed at him. It was possibly the most irritating thing he could have done. Something about the High Priest’s robes must have set him off, because after getting the Master inside the TARDIS he seemed unable to look at him without breaking up laughing.

The Master stood there, getting more and more angry and embarrassed, and the Doctor kept laughing, until finally there was nothing left to do but to grab hold of the other Time Lord and snog him into silence.

That time they finished in the library, in a long, slow, sweet bout of lovemaking on the rug in front of the fire. The Master was never entirely clear on how they ended up in the library, except the Doctor really did like books all that much.

*~*~*

“I’m sorry, all right?” the Master said. “I said I was sorry.”

“Not good enough.” The Doctor didn’t look at him. His face was closed and hard as he moved around the console.

“It was an accident! And anyway, it was just one security guard. They die like flies.”

The Doctor stopped moving. “There is no such thing as ‘just one’ human life. His name was James Reddingham. He was 23 years old.”

The trouble had started about three weeks after the Vega incident, when they returned to Earth, to Cardiff to refuel. The Doctor took precautions. He landed them a full century after the Master’s last conquest of Earth, the year that never happened. The Master tried to point out that, as it hadn’t happened, no one would remember it anyway, but the Doctor didn’t listen.

He refused to even look outside, just threw open the fuel tanks and began to soak up the rift energy. The Master sat on the control room steps and sulked.

The tanks were about half full when the Mauve Alert blared to life. The Doctor yanked the monitor toward him and stared. 

“Torchwood,” he spat. It might have been a curse. He switched off the alarm and ran for the door. “Stay here,” he ordered, shrugging into his coat. “Don’t touch anything.”

Before the Master could speak the Doctor had pulled open the TARDIS door and was gone. The Master heard the lock click shut behind him.

He sat still for a moment, listening to the silence. Then he got up and made his way to the command console. The source of the Mauve Alert was blinking on the monitor screen: from what the Master could see of the readout it looked like a dark matter fusion reaction was starting about 100 yards from where the TARDIS was parked.

He gave a low whistle. “Well. That should keep him busy.”

Then he checked the fuel tanks. In his rush, the Doctor had left them open. The Master stood looking at the blinking amber light above the fuel gauge while one hand drummed a rhythm against the console. Then he smiled.

He didn’t need control access to pry the panel off the underside of the console, or to cut a few key wires and cross-circuit them. Five minutes after he began work there was a spark and an acrid smell of smoke, and the TARDIS central computer received a signal that the open fuel tanks were overloading.

An alarm began to beep. Thirty seconds later the TARDIS began automatic shutdown procedures.

Two minutes after that, in the absence of any other instruction, the TARDIS implemented emergency protocol procedure six. In the presence of a habitable world, and to safeguard the lives of her passengers, the doors automatically opened as the TARDIS went dark.

The Master skipped gleefully down the ramp and out into the Plass. It was a cool day, and the pavement was wet from recent rain. In the spirit of civic mindedness the Master pulled the police box doors neatly closed behind him. Then he looked around for the security camera trained on this location. Spotting it, he gave the camera a jaunty wave.

“Bye-bye, Doctor,” he called. “It’s a brave new world. I think I’ll go see what UNIT’s up to these days.” He blew the camera a kiss and ran.

The Doctor caught up to him 48 hours later. The Master tried not to take it personally. Even though he’d just about given the other Time Lord an engraved invitation and _told_ him where he’d be, the Doctor had still taken time to shut down the dark matter reaction and save the planet before coming after him.

Handsome Jack was with him. That the Master _did_ take personally, especially when the Freak greeted him with a right hook to the jaw that knocked him flat on his back, unconscious. But by that time they’d already had the running, and the showdown, and because Torchwood was involved, and because the Master had already been appointed UNIT’s scientific advisor (impersonating the Doctor in a new incarnation, and hadn’t _that_ been fun!), and because he’d told UNIT they were being attacked by a special ops team intent on kidnapping and dissecting him, there was an exchange of gunfire. And one of the UNIT grunts died.

Lance Corporal James Reddingham, of Yorkshire County, England. Age 23. Killed by friendly fire.

“So he died. He was a soldier. He was a _red shirt._ It’s what they do!”

“Enough.” The Doctor slammed down the handbrake, taking them into the vortex. “I’ve had enough. Enough of you, enough of . . . everything. Just enough.”

He walked away.

*~*~*

After that the Doctor stopped speaking to him. If the Master entered a room he was in, the Doctor would leave. If he couldn’t leave, as when the Master came into the control room while he was flying the TARDIS, the Doctor ignored him. It was as if where the Master was concerned, the Doctor had become blind and deaf.

The first week, the Master took advantage of the situation. He timed his morning visits to the kitchen to evict the Doctor just after the other Time Lord had sat down to eat, leaving the Master in possession of his breakfast. He re-arranged the books in the library so that when read in order from left to right around the room, the first letter of the titles spelled out an ancient and anatomically impossible suggestion to the Doctor. He perched on the command seat while the Doctor piloted the TARDIS and unburdened himself of every curse and derogatory comment he could think of about the Doctor, the Doctor’s ancestry and the Doctor’s sexual habits, secure in the knowledge the other Time Lord would say nothing in return.

He wished he would, but the Doctor never did.

The second week, the Master decided to give the Doctor a taste of his own medicine. He ignored the other Time Lord as assiduously as the Doctor ignored him. He stopped talking to him, stopped following him, and confined himself to the places that the Doctor never went: his room, the swimming pool, and the rooms of the Doctor’s former companions.

He spent an informative hour reading the diary of a girl named Rose, and another of a girl named Ace. He decided the Doctor had spent far, far too much time in the company of teenaged girls, and made a mental note to comment on that the next time he insulted him. Then he remembered he was avoiding the Doctor. The TARDIS began to resemble a labyrinth out of Greek myth, with the two of them minotaurs stalking in mirror opposition to each other.

The third week, the Master sulked. He sat himself on the console room floor and pouted. The Doctor came in and left again, and the Master did not move. Once the TARDIS materialized somewhere, and the Doctor went out, locking the door behind him. He was gone for hours. When he finally returned he was running, out of breath, and as he slammed the door shut behind him a laser blast shot through and exploded against the far wall. The hem of the Doctor’s coat was singed and a smell of burning rubber clung to him. The Master glanced at him, but said nothing.

The Doctor took them into the vortex. He paused a moment, looking as if he were going to speak, but then he turned and left the console room. The Master did not follow him.

By the fourth week the drums were pounding continually, so loud the Master could not sleep. He haunted the console room, his eyes itching with weariness, running his hands over the controls he could not use.

The fifth week, the Doctor began to look strained. He spent more time in the console room again, still not speaking to the Master, but not quite ignoring him either. In fact it was the opposite: the Doctor seemed unable to leave him alone. If the Master went anywhere for any length of time – the library, the kitchen or the console room – after awhile the Doctor would turn up there too. He did not speak to him. But he stayed close.

The sixth week, the Master’s headaches began in earnest. His whole body seemed to throb with the endless drumbeat, radiating from a point just behind his temples. Bile stung his throat. 47 days after the Doctor had stopped talking to him, he curled on his bed, his hands pressed against the sides of his head, and cried in an agony of frustration, pain and fury at the Doctor, at himself, and at the Time Lords who had died and left him alone with the sickening, never-ending, relentless _drums._

It was some time before he became aware of the Doctor watching him. He made to sit up and stopped, closing his eyes as a wave of dizziness washed over him. As he lay there, his stomach churning, he felt the bed dip, and then the Doctor slid behind him, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and pressing his hand against the Master’s chest.

The Master grabbed onto his hand, clinging to it as if to a lifeline against the current that threatened to drag him out to sea. He could feel the Doctor curled warm against his back, and slowly, slowly the pounding drums began to fade. Finally he slid into an exhausted sleep.

When he woke up the Doctor was gone.

By the eighth week the Doctor was definitely haggard. He was paler than usual, the freckles across his nose more noticeable against his white skin. His cheekbones seemed more pronounced, his face thinner. The Master suspected he was not sleeping.

He listened at the Doctor’s door one night after the other Time Lord had retired. He waited a long time, it seemed, hearing nothing but the gentle hum of the TARDIS and the drumbeat that threatened to drown out whatever quiet noise the Doctor might make. But he was experienced in listening past the drums to hear real sounds outside his head, and so he did not miss the creak of bedsprings, and then the whimper that cut straight to the Master’s core.

His breath caught. The Doctor’s nightmares, it seemed, had not abated. He tried the door handle – carefully, carefully – but it did not turn. The Doctor had locked him out.

Forgetting all attempts at stealth, the Master rattled the door handle in disbelief. Then he turned on his heel and strode to the console room, fuming. He did not waste time examining the controls he could not use, but swung onto his back and began to pry off the panel under the console.

The next instant there was a loud noise and a flash of light, and he convulsed as a pulse of transtator current seared through every nerve ending in his body. The world went black before he could draw breath to scream.

He awoke in his room, lying fully clothed on his bed. The room, he noted once it had stopped spinning around him and came into focus, had reverted from rock&roll sex god style back to Trappist monk décor. He sat up. Then he saw the note.

It was stuck neatly to the door just below eye height, the circular Gallifreyan symbols written in the Doctor’s flowing hand on a square of yellow paper. It was, in its own way, a model of succinctness.

_Don’t touch the console._

“Great,” the Master muttered. “Just great. Thanks so much for the advance warning, I _don’t_ think.”

He snatched down the note and crumpled it in his fist. Dropping it to the floor, he turned the door handle.

It was locked. The Master yanked at it, incredulous at first and then in growing anger. He swore and kicked the door. The resulting flare of pain from his bruised toes was the last straw. The drumbeat exploded to full force as something inside him snapped. In a surge of raw rage he slammed his fist against the door, and then as he whirled, swearing, his eye caught the bookcase against the opposite wall.

Several minutes later he came back to himself to find that he was kneeling in the midst of what appeared to be the debris left from a very small, very focused tornado. Books were heaped over the floor around him, their pages torn and their spines cracked. Mingled among them was the splintered remains of the wooden bookcase, along with what looked like shards from the mirror that had hung over the bureau. The bureau itself was toppled over on its front, and the bed was stripped, the mattress half dragged onto the floor and the bed-frame leaning drunkenly to one side.

The Master felt dazed. His throat was sore: he had the idea he’d been screaming. He waited to see if the Doctor would come to investigate. He waited for almost an hour, and then finally he got up and picked his way through the mess to the bathroom to get himself a drink of water.

*~*~*

Three months after the UNIT grunt’s death – the death of James Reddingham, whose name was burned into the Master’s memory for the rest of his regenerations – there was a sound at the Master’s door. A key turned in the lock.

The Master looked up, his stomach clenching in anticipation and suppressed hope. He was sat on the bed, reading _The Art of War._ He held the book in his left hand while his right tapped a rhythm on the bedspread. He’d read every book in the room five times in the time that he’d been locked in here, reading them as slowly as he could force himself, including the ones whose pages he’d had to fish out of the wreckage pile and tape back together.

The TARDIS had supplied him with the tools to repair most of the damage done to the furnishings, though she had obstinately refused to clean up the mess herself. She’d also provided him with food that did not, surprisingly, consist solely of stale pumpernickel and water. Most of the meals _did_ feature a pumpernickel presence, but it was not the only nourishment, and for that the Master was grateful.

He was fairly certain he’d gone mad. Madder than usual, anyway. There was definitely a blurred portion of his memory somewhere in the middle of the ninth or tenth week of his isolation, and the very fact he was not certain of the exact time was a significant cause for concern.

But if he had, he seemed to have recovered again. The trick, he’d found, was to not resist the drums. If he just let them flow through him, their continual rhythm in his mind and heartsbeat, then he could manage with only a slight headache and a tendency to tap his fingers against any and all available flat surfaces. He could live with that.

He could _not_ live with the silence. As he’d accepted the drums, he’d come to realize that they were only so loud because there was nothing else to drown them out. He’d never noticed them before because he’d had a hundred thousand other voices in his mind, and even one Time Lord’s presence was enough to fill the silence. Or at least one particular Time Lord’s presence was enough.

But the Time Lords were dead. And the Doctor had abandoned him. Again. In the weeks since he’d woken up alone in his room, it had felt like forever.

The bedroom door opened, and there in the spill of golden light from the corridor stood the Doctor.

The Master’s book dropped, unnoticed, to the floor as he got to his feet. His legs felt weak, his knees watery. He braced himself against the post of his narrow bed while he drank in the sight of the other Time Lord.

The Doctor looked awful. His hair was a mess, hanging over his eyes, and he was thinner than ever. His long coat was stained with smoke and grease, and the collar of his shirt was frayed. His gaze locked with the Master’s, and there was a dark, wild look in his eyes that made the Master’s throat go dry.

The Master swallowed. He was angry with the Doctor, he reminded himself. Furious. He’d spent weeks thinking about this moment, planning what he would say, how he would make the Doctor pay for abandoning him. And he would. Make the Doctor pay. Soon. Because he was so angry with him. Right.

“What happened?” he asked.

The Doctor shook his head. Wordlessly he crossed the room, and taking the Master’s hand he pressed it to the side of his face. The Master’s fingers automatically found the contact points at the temple, and then the images came in a flood, pouring into him, sight and sound and smell and taste and touch overwhelming his senses, all laced with the raw pain of grief and gut-wrenching guilt.

_It was a ship. A distress signal from the edge of the Wolverine Nebula, and the Doctor had followed it without hesitation. It was a generation ship, launched by an ambitious but pre-lightspeed civilization, en route to a colony that would be populated by this crew’s many times distant descendants. There were more than a thousand people on board: men, women and children._

_Two and a half years into their flight, the engines malfunctioned. The reactor core was going critical, and the hard radiation it emitted cut through the colonists’ protective gear like tissue paper. None of them could get inside engineering to fix it._

_But the Doctor could. He landed the TARDIS next to the overloading core and donned his red-orange space suit. It was a few minutes’ work to shut down the reaction and stop the core from exploding. Then he looked for the cause of the malfunction._

_It wasn’t hard to find. The remains of the bomb were fused to the fuel injection coil: all twisted metal and burnt circuits. It had been small, that was something. Whoever had done this had wanted there to be time for the crew to realize what was happening. Time enough to realize, but not the ability to stop it._

_He had no sooner found it and processed the implications when he felt something hard press against his back, and turned to find a maintenance droid holding a laser welder on him at close range._

_The droid was remote controlled by, as it turned out, a mentally unstable engineering tech with a grudge against the ship’s captain and a taste for explosives. Two years into the trip he’d developed the conviction off-world colonization was doomed to failure, and sabotaged the engines with the intent of forcing the captain to return home._

_The Doctor attempted to reason with him, offering to take him and anyone else who wanted out back to their homeworld in the TARDIS. He had nearly succeeded – he could hear the technician’s resolve wavering over the intercom speaker – when there was a crash, confused shouting and the whine of laser fire, and the line went dead._

_The command crew had traced the transmission back to the technician’s hiding place. Ship’s security had broken down the door and in the ensuing struggle had shot him – but not before he activated the second, much larger bomb wired directly into the heart of the engine core._

_With seconds to act and no way to reach the bomb before it went off, the Doctor did the only thing he could. He blew out the access ports and vented the core directly into space._

_The ship wasn’t designed for that. The sudden decompression ruptured the bulkheads from the engineering deck to the outer hull, and then a wave of superheated plasma engulfed the lower third of the ship as the core exploded._

_Seven hundred people concentrated in the ship’s upper decks survived to be picked up by the Neikol Confederacy’s rescue ships. Three hundred people were trapped in the lower sections and burned to death. The Doctor, pinned under a heavy steel beam when the engineering hull ruptured, heard their screams, their pleas for help broadcast over the ship’s intercom. But by the time he fought his way free and made it to the TARDIS, they had stopped._

The Master drew back, shaking. It was not just the loss of life. The screams, the fire and smoke and the squeal of ruptured metal had blended with the chaos of battle in the Doctor’s mind, and had awoken memories he’d long since buried. In that instant, trapped under the weight of the beam with the fires burning around him and the screams of the dying in his ears, he’d been thrown full-force back into the world of his nightmares.

In that instant, Gallifrey had burned again. It had not been hundreds who died, but billions, and the Doctor’s hand was on the lever. And even after he pushed himself up and heaved aside the massive beam, even after he regained the quiet safety of the TARDIS and knew the fires were far away and long since gone, even now he could still hear them screaming.

The Master’s hand dropped to his side. He looked at the Doctor, at the hollow, aching darkness in his eyes, and saw there a pain greater than any he had ever caused, greater than any he had ever imagined. All his schemes over the centuries, all his effort and plotting, and the universe had conspired to deal the Doctor a worse blow than any he had conceived. It wasn’t fair.

He wondered what one said at a time like this. _I’m sorry_ seemed woefully inadequate, and anyway he’d likely choke before he could bring himself to verbalize sincere sympathy for his old nemesis. _It wasn’t your fault_ had the advantage of being true, but he doubted the Doctor would believe it.

The Doctor could have gone to any of his little human pets if he wanted platitudes of that kind. But he hadn’t. He’d come to the Master. And the Master was beginning to get an idea of why.

He reached up to cup the Doctor’s cheek. “It should have been me,” he said. And he meant it. The Doctor’s pain, by rights, belonged to him.

The Doctor leaned, trembling, into his touch. His eyes slipped closed. The Master swallowed. He stepped close, so he could feel the Doctor’s body heat against his skin, and whispered in his ear.

“They died because of you. _I_ could have died because of you,” he added, realizing for the first time into what danger the Doctor had placed the TARDIS, and by extension the Master, all without his knowledge. A spark of anger flared, adding to the heat pooling in his belly and groin.

The Doctor shuddered. The Master stroked his thumb over his cheekbone. “Tell me what you need.”

The Doctor opened his eyes. He did not speak. Instead he caught the Master’s hand and turned, pulling him out into the TARDIS corridor.

The Master followed, too thrilled at finally escaping his prison to protest this treatment. The Doctor led him swiftly down the passage, through two branching turns and down a graceful spiral staircase, to end at a plain, locked door.

Dropping the Master’s hand, he unlocked the door and opened it. The Master followed him into the room, and stopped.

It was a simple, clean and open space, devoid of furnishings of any kind. Woven mats of bamboo covered the floor and walls. A soft light fell from high windows that, the Master knew, looked out on nothing but the interior of the TARDIS. More than anything the room reminded him of a Japanese _dojo_, with one or two differences.

It was the differences that immediately drew his eye. The first was a pair of old-fashioned handcuffs dangling from a short chain bolted to the center of the ceiling. The second was a tall basket holding a number of long, straight rattan canes.

The Master’s throat went dry. Either the Doctor had been lying when he’d said he didn’t have anything kinky, or else he’d been shopping in the time the Master had been imprisoned.

A click behind him drew his attention. The Doctor had closed the door, locking them in. He met the Master’s gaze and then looked away. He discarded his coat, then loosened his tie and pulled it over his head. He shrugged out of his jacket and kicked off his trainers, and his hands hardly shook at all as he undid the buttons of his dress shirt. Undershirt, slacks, pants and socks joined the pile on the floor, and then the Doctor was standing naked and completely exposed in front of him, and the Master could hardly get his breath.

He glanced at the Master, and then he walked over to where the handcuffs dangled above his head. He had to stand on tiptoe to reach them, the long muscles of his calves flexing as he stretched upward, his back arching as he strained to fit the metal circlets around his wrists. The sound of them finally locking into place was loud in the empty room.

The Doctor hung suspended, the handcuffs cutting into his wrists and his feet barely touching the floor. The Master could see his muscles straining with the effort of maintaining his precarious balance. He was breathing fast as he watched, the mingled anticipation and excitement almost painful in their intensity. He had envisioned this sort of scenario before, had dreamed of it, but never had he seen the Doctor so vulnerable, so completely in his power.

And this by the Doctor’s own hand! He was _giving_ himself up for the Master to do whatever he liked, and that thought was very nearly more than the Master could take.

He forced himself to breathe slowly, struggling to slow his racing hearts. When he had regained a modicum of control he stepped forward and stroked his hand down the long curve of the Doctor’s back. The Doctor shivered, but did not try to pull away.

The Master pressed close behind him, sliding his arms around the other Time Lord’s waist, and nuzzled the back of his neck. He inhaled the Doctor’s scent, his breath coming faster and faster until he was panting against the Doctor’s skin. His hands spread against the Doctor’s chest and the taut flatness of his stomach, pulling him off balance, crushing him to him.

“Tell me you want this,” he breathed. “Tell me you need me.”

The Doctor whimpered. The pain, the _needfulness_ of that sound undid the Master completely. He bit down, sinking his teeth into the Doctor’s shoulder as he ground the hard ache of his erection against his thigh.

The Doctor squirmed. “Koschei, wait.”

The Master barely heard him. He was lost in the heat and smell and taste of his age-old enemy, and nothing else mattered. Even the drums were nothing but a faint echo in the back of his mind, drowned in the sea of want. For months he’d needed this, and been denied. Now at last he could touch the Doctor again, hold him, and the Doctor was speaking to him again, acknowledging him, and the Master had never needed him so badly as he did now.

The Doctor pulled away. “Master, _stop_.”

The Master broke off, breathing hard. “Oh for fuck’s sake – _what?_”

“Just, wait,” the Doctor said. “Please. I’ll do whatever you want – after. But first, please, I need . . .”

“What?” the Master circled to face him, and for the first time took in the full sight of his old enemy and lover.

The Doctor was bound, stretched, utterly vulnerable – and completely unaroused. The Master felt a flush of embarrassment, quickly followed by a surge of anger. He had been all but humping the other Time Lord like a dog in heat, and the Doctor had felt _nothing._ He must be using biofeedback control, the cold, arrogant, selfish bastard – but then the Master looked up, into the Doctor’s eyes, and that theory evaporated like mist before the noonday sun.

Because in the Doctor’s eyes was such longing, such desperate, aching _need_ it took the Master’s breath away. The last vestige of control was torn away and the Doctor needed him, needed what only he could give him. For the Doctor, sex had little to do with it. For the Master, that hardly mattered.

He drew a ragged breath. “Tell me what you want.”

The Doctor licked his lips. “Master . . . _please._”

The Master turned and walked swiftly to where the basket waited. He drew a rattan cane from its depths and bent it, feeling it flex and spring back between his hands. He swung it around his hand as he moved to stand behind the Doctor, and it made a rushing, hissing sound as it sliced through the air.

The Doctor made a small sound in his throat: a tiny, wordless plea. The Master’s mouth tightened, and then he raised his arm and brought the cane swishing down across the Doctor’s bare skin. There was a flat, hard sound of wood striking flesh, and the Doctor yelped, jerking against the short chain that held him upright.

The Master waited, giving him time to feel it, time to savor the sharpness of the pain and the slow, lingering heat it left behind. The Doctor moaned, his head hanging forward, and then gradually he began to relax.

The Master timed his next strike perfectly, cutting across the tender skin of the upper thighs, and the Doctor jerked upright with a cry of pain.

The Master gave him no time to adjust, but set his feet and brought the cane down again, and again, so fast that the sensations must have blurred into a single, burning stroke. The Doctor squirmed under the onslaught, pulling at his cuffs in a futile effort to escape. He was gasping for air, his breathing harsh to match the Master’s own.

It wasn’t enough. The Master wanted to hear him, wanted to hear the cries from the Doctor’s lips, sounds reserved for only his ears. The Doctor’s penance was his alone.

He redoubled his efforts, and now the Doctor was swearing, the gasps of pain lost in a torrent of filthy words in a thousand different languages.

His back was red, the curve of his arse and his upper thighs crisscrossed with thin raised lines, and the Master wanted nothing so badly as to bury himself in that heated flesh.

“You’re holding out on me,” he said, and paused to let his words penetrate the haze of his old friend’s pain and need.

It took a minute, but finally the Doctor lifted his head. “What?”

“Admit it,” the Master said. “It’s not enough that you’re a murderer; you’re a liar too.”

The Doctor tugged restlessly at his handcuffs, making the chain rattle. “Master . . .”

“You came to me begging for your punishment, and now . . .” the Master shrugged. “You won’t take it. You’re still clinging to pride.”

“No,” the Doctor said. His voice cracked, and he swallowed. “You’re wrong.”

The Master struck him, hard, and the Doctor cried out, flinching in surprise. Before he could recover the Master pressed close behind him, pushing apart the Doctor’s legs and reaching around his narrow hips to grasp his cock.

The Doctor stiffened and started to pull away, but the Master yanked him back with a hand on his hip. He stroked firmly over the Doctor’s swelling length, dragging him along the edge between pleasure and pain. The Doctor groaned, a sound somewhere between desire and despair.

“Feel it,” the Master ordered. He hooked one leg around the Doctor’s, making certain that the other Time Lord had no choice but to feel his own hardness pushing into him from behind. “Take it. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? So the choice would be taken from you. No more decisions. No more responsibility. No more deciding who lives and who dies. Just you and me, and the chance to _feel_. So feel it, Doctor. Give in to it. Your penance.”

The Doctor moaned, his head falling back as he thrust shallowly against the Master’s hand. He was fully hard now, and his cock was hot and pulsing in the Master’s grip.

“Fuck,” the Master panted. “Fuck, Doctor, _please_ –”

He pulled back and the Doctor made a soft noise of protest at the loss. Before he could recover the Master swung the cane as hard as he could across the sensitized flesh of his arse, and the Doctor cried aloud.

“Master, please . . .”

The Master threw the cane aside and undid his trousers. He yanked them down, belt, pants and all, and kicked them off, stumbling a little as the fabric caught on his shoes. He kicked those off as well. Then he grabbed the Doctor’s hips, pulling him back and down until the Master’s cock was seated firmly in his cleft.

The Doctor was dragged off balance, the cuffs digging into his wrists and his arms stretched to their limit. The Master could feel the tension in his shoulders and back as he struggled. He tightened his hold and was rewarded with a breath of pain.

“Koschei, stop. It’s too much.”

“You can take it,” the Master said. “You always could.”

He licked a bead of sweat from the Doctor’s shoulder and slid his hand down to cup the other Time Lord’s balls. The Doctor gasped and went still.

“Good boy,” the Master growled. He shifted his hips, thrusting shallowly into the Doctor’s welcoming heat. “God, you're so tight. Where did you put the lube?”

The Doctor shook his head. The muscles of his neck and back were trembling with strain and he was breathing hard, panting in time with the Master’s thrusts. “There . . . isn’t . . . any.”

“What?” The Master drew back, craning his neck to see the other Time Lord’s face. “What are you talking about?”

“I . . . ohh . . .” the Doctor dropped his head forward, closing his eyes. “I didn’t . . .”

“Oh, you are kidding me,” the Master was incredulous, torn between anger and amusement. “Not even you are that dense. You set this up. What did you think would happen?”

“I . . . don’t care. It’s supposed to hurt.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Holding the Doctor in place with one hand on his hip, the Master slid his other up to grasp his shaft. He stroked him firmly, rubbing the ball of his thumb over the tip, and the Doctor gasped and bucked against him. “You can’t take this from me. Your punishment is _mine_, and no one else’s. I decide whether it hurts, and when, and how much. Not you. Not Jack. _Me._ You got that?”

He knew how absurd it sounded. He could hear the twisted logic, the mingled love and hate even as he said the words. He didn’t care. The Doctor was moaning now, actually moaning his name amid little gasps and mewls of want, and the Master’s hand was coated with his fluids.

So the Master drew back and pushed two slicked fingers deep inside the Doctor’s entrance, and as the Doctor cried out, his whole body quaking in reaction, the Master added a third finger and twisted his wrist and _pushed_, right there, and the Doctor jerked so hard his feet left the floor entirely and his whole weight was suspended between the manacles at his wrists and the Master’s hold on his hip.

Which suited the Master just fine. He kicked the Doctor’s legs further apart and grasped his hips with both hands and lifted and pulled and drove into him, and he was tight, he was so tight and it hurt him but it hurt the Doctor more, and the Doctor was crying, sobbing his name as he thrust into him again and again.

With a final shuddering groan the Master climaxed, burying himself deep in the Doctor’s heated flesh as the waves of pleasure pulsed through him. When his vision cleared he was trembling, weak-kneed and shaken but still standing. The Doctor hung limp in his arms, his head slumped forward and his whole weight dragging at the cuffs on his wrists.

The Doctor was taller than he was in this regeneration, and the Master had to strain to reach the cuffs at his wrists. He fumbled, one arm wrapped around the Doctor’s chest as he stood on tiptoe to reach, and finally his fingers slid across the cool metal and found the small raised button that unlocked them.

A single push was all it took. The cuffs snapped open. The Doctor slumped bonelessly to the floor and the Master went down with him, cushioning his fall. He pulled the other Time Lord to him and brushed a hand over his hair. The Doctor’s eyes were closed. He looked utterly spent.

The Master looked at him for a long moment, studying the fine-boned features, the sharply defined cheekbones and the shadows under the Doctor’s eyes. He examined the Doctor’s wrists, noting the abraded skin and the thin flesh already beginning to bruise.

He sighed. “Oh, Thete, you could have opened them any time.”

The Doctor’s coat was piled with the rest of his clothes on the floor a short distance away. The Master rolled onto his side to reach it, and then slid back to the Doctor. He pulled the other Time Lord to him, shifting until he was lying on his back with the Doctor sprawled half on top of him, his head pillowed on the Master’s chest.

The Master drew the coat over both of them. He lay back, feeling the warmth and weight of the Doctor pressed against him, the slow thud of his heartsbeat and the tickle of his hair under the Master’s chin. He released a long, contented breath and closed his eyes.

The drums were entirely silent.


	7. Chapter 7

After that life aboard the TARDIS returned to normal, or as normal as it ever could be with two Time Lords sharing quarters as sworn enemies, lifelong friends and sometimes lovers.

The Master was no longer confined to his room. Claiming not to trust the Doctor not to lock him up again, however, he took to sleeping in the Doctor’s bed at night. The Doctor made no comment on this, either to encourage or discourage him. For three days he simply did not go to bed. But on the fourth night he came in silently after the Master had retired and slid under the covers without speaking or, indeed, acknowledging the other Time Lord’s presence at all.

The Master slept peacefully that night. The drums were all but gone; noticeable only when he concentrated on them. He fell asleep listening to slow rhythm of the Doctor’s breathing, and when in the small hours of the morning the Doctor woke from his nightmares, shaking, the Master was there to hold him.

It was three months before the Master escaped again. When he did, stealing a Time Agent’s vortex manipulator during a visit to an off-world colony of Earth’s 51st century, he promptly set it for the farthest point in time and space he could, burning out its circuits in his first jump. He landed in 17th century France, during the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King.

In eight days the Master was appointed as Louis’ official viceroy with what amounted to his own opulent palace within the halls of Versailles, a positive harem of courtiers and ladies in waiting at his command, and a personal guard of 50 men. He settled down to enjoy himself while he waited for the Doctor to catch up to him.

Two days later he started wondering what was taking the other Time Lord so long.

A day after that the drums returned.

By the fourteenth day the Master was bored with Versailles, bored with Earth, and nursing a raging headache. He was furious with the Doctor for leaving him here, stuck in this backwater without indoor plumbing or a single working missile silo.

On the fifteenth day he started to get scared. What if the Doctor never came for him? What if something had happened to him and the Master were trapped here alone on this planet with nothing but a bunch of half-intelligent apes and the drums for company? With the way that the Doctor attracted trouble it was frankly astonishing he managed to last more than a few days between regenerations as it was. With his evident death wish, and without the Master to keep an eye on him, there was no telling what might happen.

On the sixteenth day the Master melted down a particularly ugly statue from his private garden. With the zinc, copper and gold thus extracted he began work on Earth’s first high-energy laser, three centuries early.

That afternoon a stable hand heard a whooshing noise behind the royal stables, and investigated just in time to see a large blue box materialize out of thin air in front of him.

The Master was in his workshop when he heard the commotion. He came at a run to find a near riot in progress at the stables. The Doctor was backed against the barn wall, apparently trying to reason with the crowd that had surrounded him. From what the Master gathered of the screamed accusations and gathering torches, they suspected the Doctor of witchcraft.

It was time to draw on his authority as viceroy. “Move aside,” he shouted, and the order was promptly taken up by his personal guards.

They moved ahead of him into the crowd, pushing a path clear. The Doctor looked up, and his eyes locked with the Master’s. At that moment a commotion arose just ahead of the Master. A young human, barely into his adolescence, was refusing to move out of the way of one the Master’s guards. The soldier raised his sword.

“_No!_” shouted the Doctor, but the Master was already moving.

Head down, he tackled the guard, knocking him full length into the mud and straw of the yard. His sword fell to the ground, and one of the peasants picked it up.

In the ensuing chaos the Master stayed down, trying to avoid notice. This couldn’t be blamed on him, could it? If any of the humans got themselves killed, the Doctor couldn’t hold it against him. He’d tried to stop it. The burning question was: would the Doctor see it that way?

He was peripherally aware of a slender figure pushing through the mob toward him. Then a pinstripe-clad arm appeared at the edge of his vision, and a hand reached for his. The Master grabbed it.

The Doctor hauled him to his feet, and then they were running, buffeted by the fighting crowd, slip-sliding through the mud and muck of the stable yard. They skidded around the corner of the stable and there was the TARDIS, solid and real with the lights of her windows glowing in welcome. The Master had never been more glad to see anything in his life.

The Doctor fumbled the key from his pocket and they crashed through the doors to safety. The Doctor was breathless, laughing, his hair standing up in wild disarray and his eyes shining, and the Master simply had no option but to kiss him.

The Doctor responded, one hand sliding around the Master’s waist and the other cupping the back of his neck as the kiss deepened. When they finally broke apart they were both breathing hard, and the Master’s hearts were pounding for a reason that had nothing to do with their near escape from the mob outside.

He nuzzled the Doctor’s neck, nosing past the layers of jacket and shirts to finally reach bare skin beneath. He breathed deeply, closing his eyes as he took in the scents of autumn and parchment and rain all mixed with the indefinable tang that was the Doctor, his Theta, that remained unchanged no matter what face he wore.

He sighed. “What took you so long?”

“You didn’t exactly leave me a note,” the Doctor said. There was an amused lilt to his voice that changed to a gasp as the Master’s teeth scraped over his collarbone. He tilted his head back, one hand sliding up to tangle in the Master’s hair. “And – ah – I was busy. There was – mmm – a revolution on – oh – on Dextis Prime.”

“You stopped it?” the Master asked, not terribly interested in the answer. He was working at the buttons on the Doctor’s shirt.

“I started it,” the Doctor said. He broke free of the Master long enough to look at the outside monitor. “H’m. Still a lot of people out there. I suppose we’d better stay put until they go away.”

“Oh.” The Master was disappointed. He wanted off this rock of a planet, the sooner the better. The Doctor saw his expression and grinned.

“Not to worry. I know how we can pass the time while we wait.”

*~*~*

Much later, sprawled in a tangle of sheets across the Doctor’s bed with his head resting on the other Time Lord’s chest, the Master had a thought.

“You know,” he said, tracing idle circles over the sharp ridge of the Doctor’s hipbone, “about that revolution of yours.”

“Mmm,” the Doctor murmured. His eyes were closed as he rubbed the Master’s back with long, gentle strokes. 

“On, where was it? Dextis Prime?”

“I warned them,” the Doctor said. “I gave them a chance. They didn’t listen.”

“Dastardly fiends, the lot of them,” the Master agreed. “They had it coming to them.” He pushed himself up to kiss one of the red lines running over the Doctor’s shoulder. It had been good this time, better than the Master had ever dreamed. The Doctor had not made him punish him, not at all. But no matter what his regeneration the Master couldn’t help clawing when the Doctor took him, and the other Time Lord’s back was a mass of scratches. In retrospect the Master wondered if that knowledge was why the Doctor had finally been willing to top him this time.

“But you know,” he added, looking up at the Doctor’s face, “it’ll have left a power vacuum.”

The Doctor opened his eyes. He held the Master’s gaze, his eyes dark. “You know I’d stop you.”

“I know,” the Master said. He ducked his head against the Doctor’s chest so the other Time Lord could not see his smile. “I know.”

It was in their nature. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t nice, but it was the reality of who they were. The Master would never admit it aloud, but he needed the Doctor. He needed him as he needed air to breathe and water to drink. He always had.

It had taken the destruction of Gallifrey to make him realize the Doctor needed him just as badly. The Doctor would never admit that, either. But the Master finally understood.

Alone in the universe, they each needed an equal. They each needed someone to stop them. And they each uniquely needed the other. They were each of them broken, the Master and the Doctor, but together their fractured pieces fit into one whole.

Half-asleep, one arm thrown over the Doctor’s hip and his eyes closed as he listened to the steady, solid beat of the Doctor’s hearts beneath his ear, the Master thought it was _good._

And the drums said nothing at all.

The End


End file.
